is independent of any government, political faction, ideology, economic interest or religious creed.

It works for the release of men and women imprisoned anywhere for their beliefs, colour, ethnic origin, language or religion, provided they have neither used nor advocated violence. These are termed "prisoners of conscience". opp AMNESTYINTERNATIONAL oses torture and the death penalty in all cases and without reservation. It advocates fair and early trials for all political prisoners and works on behalf of persons detained without charge or without trial and those detained after expiry of their sentences. seek AMNESTYINTERNATIONAL s observance throughout the world of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. has AMNESTYINTERNATIONAL 1,665 adoption groups and national sections in 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, North America and Latin America and individual members in 78 countries. Each adoption group works for three prisoners of conscience in countries other than its own. The three countries are balanced geographically and politically to ensure impartiality. about prisoners and human rights violations emanates from Information Amnesty International's Research Department in London. has INTERNATIONAL consultative status with the United Nations AMNESTY (ECOSOC), UNESCO and the Council of Europe, has cooperative relations with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States, and has observer status with the Organization of African Unity (Bureau for the Placement and Education of African Refugees). is INTERNATIONAL financed by subscriptions and donations of its AMNESTY worldwide membership. To safeguard the independence of the organization, all contributions are strictly controlled by guidelines laid down by Al's International Council, and income and expenditure are made public in an annual financial report.

is NESTYINTERNATIONAL a worldwide human rights movement which AM

REPORT OF AMNESTY AN

INTERNATIONAL MISSION TO ARGENTINA 6-15 November 1976

Amnesty International Publications 1977 All rights reserved First Published, March 1977 ISBN: 0 900058 47 1 Original Language: English Al Index: PUB 68/00/77 Published by Amnesty International Publications Copies of Amnesty International Publications can be obtained from the offices of the national sections of Amnesty International. Office addresses and further information may be obtained from the International Secretariat, 53 Theobald's Road, London WC I X 8SP, England. Printed in Great Britain by Hill and Garwood Ltd, Fourth Way, Wembley, Middlesex.

al

dur Published ing Yea of 1977 Prisoners Conscience r by AmnestyInternationalPublications

CONTENTS

Preface Introduction Legislation Prisons and Prisoners Disappearances Torture Refugees Conclusion Recommendations Appendices: Testimony concerningMilitary Tribunals Lord Avebury's Account of his Visit to Villa Devoto Prison Testimony concerning the Operations of Uruguayan Security Forces in Argentina Cases of Refoulementof Uruguayan Refugees RepresentativeCase Histories List of Disappearancessince 24 March 1976 Resolution 3452 (XXX) Adopted by the United Nations

5 7 11 17 27 36 40 48 51

52 53

56 60 63 70 89

PREFACE

In Argentina, on 24 March 1976, the government of Marla Estela Martinez de Peron was overthrown by a military coup. To many observers the event seemed hopeful; possibly the military would provide a solution to the country's formidable problems: the continual outbreaks of terrorism, the alarming effects of spiralling inflation, the ubiquity of political imprisonmentand the numerous mysterious abductions. The new President, General Jorge Rafael Videla, issued a series of statements. He pledged himself to restore respect for human rights; he would also eliminate terrorism and "monopolize"the use of violence.

Following the coup, all violence increased. For the first three months after 24 March, twice as many political murders were reported as in the three months before. The number of arrests and abductions mounted; so too did the number of allegationsof torture and the incidence of deaths in custody.

In November 1976, on account of this serious situation,a delegation was sent to Argentina by Amnesty International. The delegates were Lord Avebury, a member of the British House of Lords and of the Human Rights ParliamentaryCommission, Father Robert Drinan, a member of the House of Representativesof the United States Congress and Patricia Feeney, a British member of the InternationalSecretariatof Amnesty International. The intention of the delegates was to discuss the following subjects with members of the government: the number and identity of political prisoners; the allegationsof torture; the alleged complicity of the police and military in illegal and violent abductions; the status and security of Latin American refugees; the nature and effects of the legislation enacted since the coup.

The members of the mission were unfortunatelyunable to arrange an interviewwith President Videla. They did, however, have lengthy discussions with a number of high-rankingofficials:

The Under-Secretaryof Foreign Affairs: Capitan de Navio Don Gualter Allara; The Under-Secretaryof Justice: Dr Laureano Alavarez Estrada; For the Chancellor: Consejero Juaen Carlos Arlia Licenciado Rodolfo Fischer Licenciado Francisco Muro; For the Minister of the Interior: Senor Eduardo Andujar Senor Ricardo Flouret; For the Minister of Justice: Senor Luis Riggi:

While grateful for having been granted these interviews,the Amnesty delegates could not help regretting some other decisions taken

-6by the government regarding their visit. At least 20 plainclothes policemen, ostensibly assigned to protect the delegates, followed them wherever they went, and questioned, intimidatedand even detained a number of people whom they met. The intention to intimidatewas apparent from the outset: these policemen first arrived in the delegates' hotel at midnight on 8 November and claimed to be offering official assistance, even though neither the British nor the American Embassy had been given notice of this arrangementand neither Lord Avebury nor Father Drinan, in their meeting earlier that day with members of the Argentine government, had been told anything about it. The policemen,moreover, were consistentlyreluctant to give proof of their identity. At times the number of plainclothespolicemen purporting to protect the members of the mission was so great that it seriously limited their freedom of inquiry. During an official visit to two refugee hostels the delegates were accompaniedby four Ford Falcons containing 16 armed men; their proximity did little to reassure the refugees or encourage communication. The most serious harassment occurred in Cordoba where several people who met the delegates were openly threatenedby plainclothespolicemen. Two women were actually detained, without their families being told. One woman was held for 24 hours; the other for two weeks. The attitude of the government to the Amnesty mission was also apparent from the nature of the reports issued by the official news-agency, TELAM. These reports described fictitious incidentsand carried gross of misrepresentations statementsmade by the delegates,who felt obliged to issue a formal statement to correct the inaccuracies. The following report on the condition of human rights in Argentina is based partly on informationgathered during the mission from members of the government and from private individuals. But it also uses much evidence from material received by Amnesty Internationalsince the coup d'etat. This material includes not only government statementsand newspaper reports, but numerous testimoniesfrom prisoners and the relatives of missing persons. The testimoniesreferred to in this report have either been previously published or else concern people no longer living in Argentina.

INTRODUCTION

The political history of Argentina in the past two decades has been one of continuous struggle between weak civilian governmentsand a powerful military. This was demonstratedduring the period subsequent to the fall of the first Peronist government, 1955-66, when there were five different presidents, two military and three civilian. In 1966, General Juan Carlos Ongania seized power and attempted to resolve Argentina's economic problems by adopting stringent austerity measures. For the next seven years, three military presidentsruled the country. There was no permitted channel for political expression, since all parties other than the already banned Peronist movement, had been suspended by the military at the time of the 1966 coup. Clandestine political organizationsproliferated,some inspired and actively encouraged by the exiled former President Juan Domingo PerEin. In May 1969, growing unemploymentand unpopular economic policies culminated in an uprising in Cordoba; this was violently suppressedby the military, more than 20 civilians being killed. Following this rising - the Cordobazo a State of Siege was declared, and since, from 1970 onwards, the activities of left-wing armed groups intensified,further repressive legislationwas passed. Increasingviolence, labour unrest and economic instabilityled General Alejandro Agustin Lanusse to seek a compromise with the Peronists and move towards a restorationof democracy. Elections were held in March 1973 and Hector Campora became President in May, with 50 per cent of the vote. On taking office, he declared a general amnesty and revoked most of the penal laws which had not been duly enacted by congress. After only 49 days in office, Dr Campora resigned; he made way for Juan Domingo Peron, who, having already visited Argentina in November 1972, was elected President in September 1973 with 60 per cent of the vote. On his death, in July 1974, Peron was succeeded by his widow, Maria Estela Martinez de Peron. Senora Peron, advised by a small group of confidants led by the Minister of Social Welfare, Lopez Rega (now wanted in Argentina for embezzlement),presided over a period of severe economic difficulties: in 1974 inflationwas 335 per cent and in March 1976 it reached an annual rate of 700 per cent. Corruption and political violence increased as factional fighting for the political successionwithin Peronism spread. On 6 November 1974, a State of Siege was introducedand more than 3,000 people suspectedof involvement in subversiveactivities were placed in preventive detention. The death squads, some which were financed, according to sworn testimony*,by the Ministry of Social Welfare, operated with impunity and were responsible for a large proportion of the 1,500

Martin Ennals Secretary General Amnesty International

* Lieutenant Paino testified in August 1975 before a congressionalcommission set up to investigatethe activities of the Alianza Anti-ComunistaAr entina (ArgentineAnti-CommunistAlliance - AAA).

-8assassinations which occurred in the 18-month period following Peran's death. On 24 March 1976, Senora Peron was deposed by the armed forces, who promised to provide economic stability and wage total war against subversion.

9
-

General Labour Confederationkidnapped. He escaped unharmed on 7 December 1976; 19 June 1976: Chief of Police, General Cardozo killed by a bomb which had been placed under his bed by Ana Maria Gonzalez, a friend of his daughter's; Twenty-five policemen killed and 60 injured in CoordinacionFederal (police headquarters); General Omar Carlos Actis, head of the state committee organizing the 1978 World Cup to be held in Argentina, shot by five gunmen whilst crossing the road. On the same day, Carlos Bargometti,a Fiat executive, shot in his car; the fifth Fiat executive to be killed since 1972; Bomb planted in the Campo de Mayo army barracks; General Jorge Rafael Videla, President of the Argentine Republic, missed assassinationby minutes; Bomb planted in cinema of army officers' club in Buenos Aires; at least 50 injured; Bomb planted in police station in La Plata; one person killed and at least 11 injured. Retired Air Force Major Adolfo Valis assassinated; Colonel Leandro D'Amico assassinated. The 17th senior military official to have been killed by left-wing groups since the coup;

Armed Or anizations

2 July 1976:

The armed left-wingorganizationsdeveloped during the military governmentswhich ruled Argentina from 1966-73. The most important groups are the Montoneros and the E'ercito Revolucionariodel Pueblo (People's RevolutionaryArmy - ERP). These have now absorbed other smaller groups. The Montoneros,who take their name from the nineteenth century aucho rebels, began to operate in 1969. They are Peronist-inspired and achieved national publicity after the kidnapping and killing, in 1970, of former provisionalPresident General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu (1955-58), who had ousted Juan PerOn in 1955. From 1970-73 they receiVed the support of the Peronist Youth Movement and of Peran himself, who referred to them as "that marvellous youth that struggles against military dictatorshipwith weapons in their hands and who know how to give their lives for the Fatherland". (However,as President,on 1 May 1974, Peran disowned them as "stupid, smooth-chinned and mercenary youths".) During Campora's brief Presidency the Montoneros suspended their activities;but when Campora resigned and Peron, as President, denounced them, they became disenchanted with the official Peronist government,and on 6 September 1974, two months after the death of Peron, they announced their resumption of the armed struggle on the grounds that "all possibilitiesof legal action have been exhausted". They continued,however, to regard themselvesas Peronist. In December 1975, one of the leaders, Roberto Quieto, was abducted and has disappeared. Since the military coup, despite heavy losses, the Montoneros have carried out several acts of violence. The E'ercito Revolucionariodel Pueblo emerged in 1970-1 as the armed wing of the TrotskyistPartido Revolucionariode los Traba'adores (Workers' RevolutionaryParty - PRT) and was particularlyactive in 1971 in the COrdoba area. It became well-known for its "military" efficiencywith a number of daring raids on military installationsand attempted in 1974 to establish a "liberatedzone" in the mountainous province of Tucuman. It has suffered heavy casualties, including, in July 1976, the death of its leader, Mario Roberto Santucho.

19 August 1976:

2 October 1976:

17 October 1976:

9 November 1976:

1 December 1976:

15 December 1976: Thirteen-poundfragmentationbomb exploded in large hall at the Defence Planning UnderSecretariat;13 people killed and 20 injured. Right-wing extremists had, until 1970, generally confined their activities to the eliminationof petty criminals, but in December of that year they began their attacks on people suspected of left-wing sympathies. However, it was during the Peronist government of 1973 onwards that parepolice groups entered the political field in earnest, kidnapping and killing on a large scale and concentratingin particularon trade unionists and left-wing activists. The most famous group is the Alianza Anti-Comunista Ar entina (ArgentineAnti-CommunistAlliance - AAA), which began its activities in December 1973 with an attempt on the life of Radical Senator Solari Yrigoyen. He sustained serious injuries but survived. Whilst there is no conclusive evidence proving a direct connection between these organizationsand the police and military, there are several circumstances which suggest official tolerance of their activities:according to Amnesty International'sinformation,these crimes are never investigatedby the authorities:no one has been tried or even arrested for them. The parepolice groups often operate in broad daylight and are never interfered with by the public authorities. They use vehicles of the same make and

Since the coup the Montoneros and the ERP have claimed responsibility for the following acts of violence: 29 April 1976: Five men and three women killed in attack on army arsenal; 30 May 1976: Colonel Juan Pita, military administratorof the

-10type as the police and military. In 1974 alone, there was strong evidence to show that these groups were responsiblefor over 300 murders. During 1975 and 1976 the activitiesof these groups increased;in the last quarter of 1976 reliable sources indicatethat they were responsiblefor approximately abductionsa day. 15

LEGISLATION The military junta is now the supremeorgan of the state and has taken upon itself extraordinary powers which violate the ArgentinianConstitution. The executiveis no longer subject to any check or control since congresshas been suspendedand the members of the SupremeCourt of Justice dismissedand replaced: The military now hold most key ministerialposts and all nine members of the new Legislative AdvisoryCommittee (Comision Asesoramiento de Le al) are officers in the armed forces. Thus the military controlsall branchesof government:the executive,the legislature and the judiciary. Strict and indeed repressivelaws were already availableto the new governmentwhen it seized power on 24 March 1976. Securit Act 20.840 This was made law on 30 September1974 and prescribessevere prison terms for any person who attemptsor encouragesby any means the alterationor suppression the established of order and the social peace of the nation. Act 20.840makes criminalany activityrelated to the distribution the of literature emblemsof "subversive" or organizations. Activitiescould count as "subversive" seven when accomplished an entirelypeacefulmanner. in Offencesrelevantto Act 20.840were placed under federal jurisdiction and all bail proceduresand suspendedsentenceswere made inapplicable. The State of Sie e In addition to SecurityAct 20.840, the military junta also maintainedthe decree of the executiveof 6 November 1974, which declareda State of Siege. Accordingto the ArgentinianConstitution(Article86, clause 19), the Presidentis empoweredto declare a State of Siege in cases of "internal upheaval". However, this provisionis qualifiedby Article 95 which states that "under no circumstances can the Presidentof the Nation pass sentenceor exercisejudicialfunctions"and by Article 23, which states: "In the event of internalunrest or an externalaggressionthat endangersthe functioning of the Constitution and of the authoritiescreated by it, a State of Siege will be declared in the provinceor territorywhere the threat to order prevails, constitutional guaranteesbeing suspendedin the interim. Whilst constitutional guaranteesare suspended,the Presidentof the Republicmay not punish or pass sentence. His power will be restrictedto arrest or moving people from one part of Argentina to another, if they do not wish to leave the country." It is clear that since the coup in March the legal restrictions the on State of Siege, providedby Articles 23 and 95, have been overruled.

-12-13The Suspensionof the Ri ht of 0 tion On 24 March 1976, the junta suspended the last clause of Article 23 "if they do not wish to leave the country"),which is known as the Right of Option. Then, on 29 March (with decree 21.338), they retroactivelyannulled this right: "All requests fof the option to leave the nation presented during the enforcementof this right, regardless of the stage of development are now automaticallywithout effect." As a result, many persons who had been granted the Right of Option before the coup were prevented from going into exile. At the time of the coup there were approximately3,000 people held at the disposal of the Executive Power for the duration of the State of Siege (and no limit has ever been fixed for its duration, either by the governmentof Marla Estela PerOn or by that of General Videla). Under Law 21.338 these people were left without any recourse against indefinite incarceration. However, the constitutionalbasis of this law has been contested in the courts. The determinationof the military junta to preclude a successfulappeal against the suspensionof the Right of Option is illustratedby the case of Maria Cristina Ercoli: the causes that motivated the declaration of the State of Siege." It is apparent that the Supreme Court, by upholding the authority of the Executive to regulate the Right of Option, has broken with one of the most fundamental tenets of the Constitution,for the Executive Power is now engaged in the exercise of judicial functions. Other Decrees and Laws Promul ated b

the Militar Junta

Decree 21.264 This was issued on 24 March 1976 and transformsa breach of the peace from a minor offence punishable by a fine or by 30 days confinement into a major federal crime punishable by a penalty of 8 years in prison. Article 5 of the decree authorizes the security forces to use firearms when a person apprehended "in flagrante delicto does not cease upon the first warning or uses arms against the officer of the peace". Attacks against public transport,communicationsand other public services are punishable by "imprisonmentfor a fixed period or death". Decree 21.264 also set up military tribunals known as Consejos de Guerra (Councilsof War). In these tribunals the accused is only entitled to a "summary trial" as described in the code of military justice, which states that a summary trial may be used when the immediate suppressionof a crime is "necessary to maintain the morale, discipline and the military spirit of the armed forces, and when dealing with serious offences such as treason, insurrection,mutiny, looting, attacks on superior officers, attacks on guards and assassinationof sentries". This situation is now automatically considered to prevail when these courts conduct hearings concerning persons involved in anything pertaining to subversion. The defendants are not allowed to be represented by civilian lawyers. According to Article 97 of the Code of Military Justice, the defence lawyer should always be an "officer in active service or retired". Furthermore, the proceedingsof these courts generally take place in camera*. Law 21.272

On 23 July 1976, the Argentine Federal Court instructed the Executive Power to allow Maria Cristina Ercoli to go into exile or_otherwise to release her within a period of 20 days. The court ruled that Senorita Ercoli had been held for sufficient length of time (7 months) to permit the Executive Power to investigateher activities and formally charge her if she were found to have been involved in any criminal acts. Her detention sine die in such conditionswould be unreasonableand, furthermore,would amount to a sentence in contraventionof Articles 23 and 95 of the Constitution,which prohibits the President of the Republic to pass sentence or to condemn. However, on 17 November 1976, the Supreme Court overruled the finding of the Federal Court in the case of Senorita Ercoli. Whilst they agreed that the sine die suspensionof the Right of Option would be unconstitutionalin so far as it implied detention for an indefiniteperiod, the Supreme Court maintained that Law 21.448, promulgated on 27 October 1976 and which now permits prisoners held at the disposal of the Executive Power to apply to leave the country, altered the situation significantly. Law 21.448 fixed a 180-day period of suspensionof the Right of Option from 27 October 1976, the moment of its publication. Law 21.449 of 27 October 1976 establishedthat persons held at the disposal of the Executive Power could only request to leave the country 90 days after the decree of their arrest had been issued. The Executive Power, however, reserved the right to grant only those requests which they considereddid not endanger the peace and security of the nation. In the case of Maria Cristina Ercoli, the refusal of the option was supported by the following note from the Ministry of the Interior:

This law was issued on 24 March 1976 and establishesthe death penalty for anyone causing serious injuries or death to military personnel or members of the security forces and police whilst carrying out their duties. Anyone who "offends the dignity and decorum" of military personnel, or security forces and police may face a sentence of up to 10 years' imprisonment. By this law the age of criminal responsibilityis reduced to 16 years and this age limit applies to the death penalty.

"His Excellency, the President of the Republic, has considered when decreeing this arrest that the activitiesof the person now detained could contribute to maintaining, expandingor aggravating

* Amnesty Internationalhas received reports that give cause for concern about the impartialityof these tribunals (see Appendix 1).

-14-Law 21.322 and Law 21.325 Press Censorshi

-15-

These were passed on 2 June 1976 and made illegal a total number of 48 organizationsand provided criminal forms of punishmentfor political activity. These laws also establishedthat all "political acts" that relate to a party are outside the law, regardless of whether they may issue in concrete action. The same applies to the publicationof any such activities which may be punished by up to 6 years'imprisonment. Law 21.338

Communi ue 19: Delito de Prensa (Crime of the Press) Passed on 24 March 1976, this establishedthat "anyone who through any medium whatsoever defends, divulges or propogates announcementsor views coming from or attributed to illicit organizationsor persons or groups notoriouslydedicated to subversiveactivities or to terrorism will be subject to an indefinite sentence of detention. Anyone who through any medium whatsoever defends, propogatesor divulges news, communiquesor views with the purpose of disrupting, prejudicingor lessening the prestige of the activities of the armed forces will be subject to detention for a period of up to 10 years".

Passed on 25 June 1976, this law modified the existing Penal Code and introduced the death penalty by firing squad within 48 hours of the sentence being pronounced; it also provides a sentence of between 2 and 6 years for anyone who instigatesa crime against a person or institutionwhether or not an act took place. Law 21.338 also amended Article 210 bis of the Penal Code by making the penalties for "illicit association"more severe: the sentence has been increased from 3 - 8 years to 5 - 12 years. If the illicit association includes the participationof leaders or organizers, the penalty imposed can be 25 years; this penalty can also be applied if the organizationhas a "cell structure". Decree 21.456

On 22 April 1976, a more stringent form of censorship was introduced: "The Government has forbidden the publicationof all news items concerning terrorist activity, subversion,abductions or the discovery of bodies, unless officially announced. The order was given to most metropolitan newspapers on Thursday night. "A brief statement issued in the press secretariat said that las from 22 April it is forbidden to report, comment or make reference to subjects related to subversive incidents,the appearance of bodies and the deaths of subversive elements andior members of the armed or security forces, unless these are announced by a responsibleofficial source. This includes kidnappings and disappearances. "A press secretariat source said that the ban on publicationof terroristactivities was aimed at suppressingany informationwhich could be used as propaganda by subversivegroups.

Issued on 20 November 1976, this modified the already existing security law 20.840 by making the penalties for all offences relating to subversionmore severe. This decree also introduces (under Article 5) prison terms of between 2 and 4 years for anyone who after a strike has been declared illegal by the competent authorities refuses to carry out his duties. Law 21.460

" 'This is a state of war,' the source said, 'and the government has the right to use this method to prevent enemy propaganda'. "The government source said this decision was not to be interpretedas a step towards total censorship, but rather a security measure in a specific area." Buenos Aires Herald: 24 April 1976 In short, the new government, by taking upon itself the power to regulate the Right of Option of prisoners held at the disposal of the Executive Power, and by placing all trials of crimes of subversionunder the jurisdictionof military courts which are themselvesdirectly responsible to the President of the Republic, is violating the Constitution,which firmly states in Article 95 that "under no circumstancescan the President of the Nation pass sentence or

Promulgatedon 20 November 1976, this authorizes the police or armed forces, when investigatingcrimes of subversion,to arrest anyone on suspicion alone whenever there are "strong indicationsor half-conclusiveproofs of guilt". This procedure will be known as "summary pre-trial". Naturally the presumptionof innocence is prejudiced by this new law. Furthermore,under Article 9 of this law a confession obtained from a prisoner during interrogation may be used as evidence against him at his trial. The statementmay only be retracted if the prisoner can prove it was obtained under duress or torture. This contravenesArticle 14 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that no one can "be compelled to testify against himself or to confess to guilt".

-16exercise judicial functions". The laws promulgatedby the military junta on or after 24 March 1976 have erased or confused the basic -distinction between the principal actors in a criminal offence, those who are accomplices in the act and those who are only accessoriesafter the fact. By rejecting the basic differences in accountabilityof those involved in a crime - differences recognized by every system of law - the military junta have made it possible to detain anyone connected, however remotely, with any alleged crime of subversion. The militarizationof civilian tribunalsmeans in effect that no citizen in Argentina who is arrested for alleged subversionhas any rights beyond those severely qualified privileges granted under the Code of Military Justice. There can be little confidence that the military courts, which only afford political defendants summary justice and deny them the right to be defended by civilian lawyers, give any guarantee of a fair and impartial trial. They thus contravene Article 10 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948): "Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independentand impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him." The Argentine Republic is a signatory to and has ratified the United Nations Charter, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the American Convention of Human Rights. PRISONS AND PRISONERS "The prisons of the Nation shall be healthy and clean, for the security and not for the punishment of the prisoners confined therein; and any measures that under pretext or precaution inflicts on them punishment beyond the demands of security, shall render liable the judge who authorizes it." Article 18 of the Argentinian Constitution Before the coup d'etat of 24 March 1976, there were approximately 3,000 people held in preventive detention at the disposal of the Executive Power (a la dis osiciOn del Poder Ejecutivo Nacional - PEN). Since then arrests have continued on a large scale but the authorities refuse, for reasons of security, to divulge the identity or number of political prisoners. The Amnesty Internationaldelegates were told that information about prisoners detained by executive decree was a military secret; officials did reveal, however, that the total capacity of the prisons was between 4,000 and 5,000 and that not all were full. This conflicts with the testimony of released prisoners, who have all commented on overcrowding. Furthermore, prisoner statistics from official and unofficial sources indicate that in four prisons alone there are 4,610 inmates: Villa Devoto

2,830, of whom 560 are held under PEN. (This includes common prisoners.) 600 political prisoners* 480 political prisoners* 300 political prisoners*

Sierra Chica Cordoba Penitentiary Coronda

A further clue as to the number of political prisoners was provided on 18 November 1976 by the Minister of the Interior, General Albano Harguindeguy,who dismissed an estimate of 20,000 as exaggeratedand instructedjournalists that the actual figure could be arrived at simply by dividing this estimate by any number between two and 10. The authorities, then, admit the existence of between 2,000 and 10,000 political prisoners, but clearly such admissions are not designed to convey precise information. The authorities have been less reticent about the number of releases and have made certain informationavailable to Amnesty International.

These figures are unofficial.

-18Between 24 March and 30 October 1976, 882 people were freed and 96 (detained)foreignerswere expelled. From 1 November to 22 December 1976, the Argentine government freed 541 persons held in preventive detention and expelled another 18 foreigners. Another 123 people were reported to have been released between 22 and 29 December 1976. Thus to date there have been altogether 1,546 releases and 114 expulsions*. However, these statisticsare of little valde, for they cast no light on the length of detention, nor on the present number of people in detention for political reasons. Amnesty Internationalbelieves that at the time of writing, January 1977, there are between 5,000-6,000political prisoners, at least twothirds of whom have not been charged but are detained indefinitely,at the disposal of the Executive Power. Since December 1975, all prisons have been under military jurisdiction; political prisoners are all categorizedunder decree 2023 (issued in December 1974 and made more severe in May 1976) as extremely dangerous and are subject to a harsh regime which a) restricts visits and correspondence to blood relatives (this does not include common-law spouses or partners of a second marriage, as divorce is not recognized in Argentina); b) imposes strict censorshicof mail and reading matter; c) authorizes spot checks and whole body searches which may be carried out at random, even at meal times; d) permits severe penalties for the smallest infractionof prison regulations. Most prisons do not allow contact visits for political prisoners (La Plata is an exception). Instead, visits take place in locutorios, specially constructed rooms with a plate glass panel separating the prisoner from his family; conversationsare conducted through a microphone**. Political prisoners in C6rdoba, Coronda (Santa Fe) and Resistencia (Chaco Province) have been denied all contact with the outside world for over six months. Moreover, prisoners held at the disposal of the Executive Power are no longer, since the coup, entitled to see their lawyers; the reason given is

19-

that, until they are charged, they do not need legal assistance. In fact, the majority of political prisoners have not been formally charged. A significantnumber have been held in detention since November 1974, when the State of Siege was declared. It is clear that the provisions of decree 2023 conflict with those of the State of Siege (Article 23 of the Argentinian Constitution). Whereas the State of Siege permits the Executive only to detain but not to punish, the regime imposed by decree 2023 is essentiallypunitive. What is more, this regime goes against the recommendationsembodied in the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, viz Rule 84(2) "Unconvictedprisoners are presumed to be innocent and shall be treated as such" and Rule 84(3) "Without prejudice to legal rules for the protection of individual liberty or prescribing the procedure to be observed in respect of untried prisoners, these ft prisoners shall benefit by a special regime Whilst, undoubtedly,conditions vary in severity from prison to prison (although the regulations are supposed to be uniformly applied), it is apparent that untried political prisoners are in most cases treated more severely than convicted common prisoners. The chief official centres of detention for political prisoners are: Villa Devoto (now a women's prison) La Plata (men) Olmos Sierra Chica (men) COrdoba Penitentiary Carcel de Encausados Buen Pastor Coronda Rawson Resistencia Province of Province of Province of Province of Province of Province of Province of Province of Province of Province of Buenos Aires Buenos Aires Buenos Aires Buenos Aires COrdoba Cordoba COrdoba Santa Fe Chubut Chaco

* Considerabledoubt exists about some of these releases as in most cases the authoritieshave described the persons on the lists as "ceasing to be detained at the disposal of the Executive Power". This could mean that the person has not been freed but charged. In this case he would of course remain in prison. The case of Patricia Miriam Borenztein is an example of this confusion. Her name appeared on a list of people released between 1 November and 22 December 1976, and then on a list of 31 people placed at the disposal of the Executive Power between 14 and 21 January 1977. This could mean that either she was charged at the end of 1976 (but this is hardly likely as she is now once more in preventive detention) or she was released and within weeks the Executive Power decided for reasons of security to detain her again, or, as has been suggestedby the Argentinian press, she was never in fact released. **The reason given for these precautions is that the visitors of political prisonersmight supply them with dangerous materials.

During the mission to Argentina, Amnesty Internationalrequested private interviewswith 26 prisoners. This request was not granted; the delegation was, however, allowed to visit one prison, Villa Devoto in the capital. Permission to visit the prison of La Plata was withdrawn, for reasons of security, following a bomb explosion on 9 November 1976 in the local police station. Lord Avebury of the Amnesty Internationaldelegation went to Villa Devoto. Although his general impressionwas that conditions in the prison were not unexpectedly severe, he was shocked when interviewinga number of female prisoners, in the presence of prison officials, by the many allegations of torture and maltreatmentmade in statementswhich included circumstantialdetail. These statementswere in all cases contradictedby a government official in a subsequentmeeting. There is evidence that since the Amnesty Internationalmission some of the women who spoke to

-20Lord Avebury have been sent to punishmentcells. (See Appendix 2: Lord Avebury's accountof his visit to Villa Devoto and statementby Father Patrick Rice.) Detailed information about prison conditionsis obtained from the statementsof former prisonersand from documentswritten by detainees. These accounts provide comprehensive evidenceon general conditions,on visits and contactwith the outside world, on the treatmentof prisoners during transfer,and on torture,harassmentand executions. Sergio Munoz Martinez,a Chilean politicalscientist,was arrested in Buenos Aires in November 1975 and was held at the disposalof the ExecutivePower for 1 year until his expulsionfrom Argentina. His account,which appears to be representative, lects the situationof ref routine brutalityand constant intimidation the prisonersby the of guards. "On 27 September,we were transferred from Villa Devoto to the prison of La Plata. This is a new maximum security prison which has more than 1,000 individualcells of 1.70 metres wide by 2 metres long. (It is reportedthat some of these small cells are now made to hold two prisoners.) All the surfacearea is covered by a wooden bench for sleeping, a mall table for eating,a chair, a washbasin,a WC, all of concreteand fixed to the wall. The only free space is that between the door and the chair. There is a 40-watt bulb installedoutside which gives a weak light througha thick glass window. Natural light comes througha pane of glass so thick that one cannot see the courtyardthrough it. When a prisonerarrives he is taken and beaten and dragged by the hair through the various checks: identity, medical, etc.; then locked in a cell from 7 to 10 days. During this period, all our belongingslike watches and shoes were stolen and we were beaten for the slightestreason. The most common torturesduring the months of October and Novemberwere: to remain crouchedfor 1 hour with head and one hand pushed through the small window in the door through which food is passed. During this time, the officers would amuse themselvesby beating us over the heads with their keyringswhich carriedmore than 150 keys; - to be stretchedout on the bed and be pummelledwith fists; to be interrupted whilst bathing just as one had soaped one's body and be dragged back to the cell; to be threatenedwith razor blade cuts; to be awakened three or four times a night. "One new officer,Rivarola, indulgedparticularlyin these practices. All of this was in addition to the regime which in
II

-21itselfconstitutestorture. "Duringall the time spent in the cell, (i.e. from 6.00 am to 9.00 pm excludingfour hours recreation)the prisoner is not allowed to lie down or sit on the bunk where the bed is made or he will be punished. As a result, prisonerssuffer from bad pains in the muscles and spine. Lock-up period is prolongedas a punishment, often for absurd reasons such as not being properlydressed (i.e.with one button unfastened)." La Plata has in the past been regardedas one of the best prisons in the country. Article 37 of the United Nations StandardMinimum Rules for the Treatmentof Prisonersstates: "Prisonersshall be allowed under necessarysupervision to communicate with their family and reputablefriends at regular intervalsboth by correspondence and by receiving visits." However,prolongedperiodsof total isolationfrom the outside world have occurred in three prisons:Cordoba Penitentiary, the Coronda in Santa Fe and the Resistenciaprison. Prisonersof Coronda testifiedthat: "From 5 May 1976, we were forbiddenvisits from our relatives,which means in effect total isolation, we can as no longer write or receive letters,which leaves us in a state of perpetualanxiety as we hear rumours of acts of violence against our families. The next thing was that all books,magazinesand all materialsfor readingor studying were removed. This was soon followedby the removal of the heater, radio, cigarettes,tea, powderedmilk, sugar, jam, salt, oil, medicines,et cetera. At the same time the prison authoritiestook away or smashedcrucifixes,family photographs, toys prisonershad made for their children, chess pieces, writing paper, biros, personalletters. All this was accompaniedby continualthreatsand provocations. "We have not been given any explanation why we are incommunicado. Furthermore, now spend 23 hours a day we locked in our cells (24 if it is raining)with no possibility of manual work or intellectual exercise."

-22Transfers Article 45(2) of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners forbids "the transportof prisoners in conveyances with inadequateventilation or light, or in any way which would subject them to unnecessaryphysical hardship". Numerous, well-substantiated counts of maltreatmentof prisoners ac during transfers have been documented by Amnesty International. Prisoners are moved under a heavily armed escort; they are handcuffed two together; when travellingby road, they are usually locked into special cell-like compartments. All of these precautionsmake it unlikely that escape could be possible. A female prisoner described a transfer from Olmos prison to Villa Devoto in late October 1976, during which prisoners were struck repeated blows with truncheonsand forced to stand throughouta journey which lasted two hours (they were transportedin meat vans). That day they were not given anything to eat from the time they got up at 6.00 am until their arrival at Villa Devoto at 6.00 pm. One woman with a new-born baby was unable to feed it during the journey because she was permanentlyhandcuffed. Some transfers have been conducted with such violence that prisoners have sustained serious injury: bruising of the body, broken bones and teeth; often they have been forced by threats to sign statements that the wounds were self-inflicted. One such transfer was described by Senor Augusto Nogueira, a 26-year-oldfarm labourer: "On 6 September 1976 I was transferredfrom the prison of Villa Devoto with another 50 prisoners held at the disposal of the Executive Power (that is, without charges) to the prison of Sierra Chica. The transfer was conducted in the following way: in Villa Devoto we were handcuffed together so two prisoners had one hand each in handcuffs and one free. We were put into lorries of the Federal Penal Department and taken to the military air base of Palomar. There, as we got out of the lorries and until we boarded the Hercules plane, we were pushed and beaten by the soldiers with whips and the butts of guns. I was beaten especiallyon the shoulders. Once on board the plane we had to sit with our heads down and our free hand on our necks. We made the whole journey approximately45 minutes - in this position, and throughout it we were constantly beaten over the head and back and the guards even walked with their boots on our backs. I was also interrogatedby personnel of the PenitentiaryDepartment and army about the reason for my arrest. Every time I replied they beat me. Once we arrived at the Azul airport we got off the plane and were showered with blows and there I had to lie face down on the ground until the lorry which was to take us to Sierra Chica arrived. We ran towards the lorry in the midst of further blows. At Sierra Chica, we were beaten again with truncheons and gun butts by the prison and army personnel. One example of the brutality and savagery of the beating is that while one of the guards was beating one of my comrades

-23with his gun, it accidentallywent off and killed another guard beside him. "Once inside the prison, we were beaten even in the entrance hall whilst we were getting undressed and weighed. We were beaten even when a prison official was taking down our personal details and a nurse examining us. We were no longer handcuffed and whilst I tried to gather up my clothes a guard took hold of me and as I tried to protect myself I dropped all my clothes. He took me at top speed completely naked, without even any shoes, from the hall to the pavilion 150 metres away across a patio covered by small stones; here the pain of the previous blows and having to run on the stones without shoes made my progress slow; neverthelessI was pushed. At the pavilion entrance there were about 10 prison employees who began to beat me all the way to my cell where I spent several hours completely naked without even a blanket until the guards arrived to question me about why I was detained, punching and beating me. Then I was taken out of the cell to the bottom of the pavilion, being beaten by various officials. There I had to look for my clothes amid further blows among a pile of belongings. They forced me to bathe in cold water, then they beat me all the way back to my cell. This is all I went through during the transfer as a result of which I lost two teeth and still have pains in different parts of my body two months later. In spite of the doctors having been informed of all this, I have never received medical attention. I should add that when I was in my cell they threw me onto the floor and started to kick me with their boots all over my body. Once I was kicked in the mouth and two teeth were broken. I had no breath or strength; I was lifted up only to be thrown onto the floor and beaten again." (Amnesty Internationalhas received many other testimonieswhich corroborate the brutality of this transfer.) There is no doubt that the treatmentdescribed in the preceding testimoniesgoes beyond the limits of what is acceptable to any civilized society and clearly violates Article 31 of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners: "Corporal punishment, punishing by placing in a dark cell, and all cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment shall be completely prohibited as punishments for disciplinaryoffences." _Alarming reports of brutality, however, come from the Penitentiary in Cordoba, where the political prisoners have been kept incommunicado since the coup. All personal belongings,reading and working materials have been taken away from them and the prisoners allege that they are kept in a constant state of tension, are subjected to interrogations each night and are forced to participate in long sessions of arduous

25-

-24military exercises known as "dances",which are generally accompanied by beatings and abuse. A joint testimonyby the political prisoners in COrdoba Penitentiaryrecounts: "In the last weeks of April, the situationdeteriorated. We were then taken out, cell by cell, at all hours of the day and night, by a colonel and three subordinateswith rifles and fixed bayonets, pistols and truncheons,who vented their loathing on us. Naked, flat on our backs in the corridors, prohibited from looking at one another, we were questioned about our activitiesoutside: trade unions, political parties, et cetera. We were beaten with rubber sticks with steel centres. They would pick out one of us at random for a prolonged beating. These night-timedisturbancescreated an an apprehensiveand nervous silence amongst us. We never knew which of us would be beaten that night The results of these last two weeks in April were: 80 percent of the prisonerswere beaten, with bruises on some part of the body, cuts, badly bruised backs. The worst were: prisoner Wind given a bayonet wound in the kidney as a result of whibh he lost one organ; prisoner Balus with partial paralysis as a result of the beatings moved twice to hospital in a coma; prisoner Barrero with haematomas on the genitals; prisoner Rudnik, convalescingon crutches after being beaten was readmitted to the prison hospital. The most badly beaten was Carlos Sgandurra: this fellow prisoner was singled out at random by a corporal who may have found his physical presence objectionable,and taken out in underpants in the middle of a cold night. They beat him brutally on the back, head and shoulders, inflictingsevere lacerations. When he returned to the cell,, his body was a mass of sores, his forehead swollen by the blows; but his torturerswere not satisfiedwith this. Another three times at different hours of the day and night, like bloodthirstyvultures, they set about him. On one occasion his tormentersamused themselves by running the flat or point of their blades on his wounds." Summary Executions Summary executionsof political prisoners have occurred in the Penitentiaryin Cordoba on various occasions, justified under the Le de Fu a or Law of Escape. The following account is a resume of several testimonieswritten by the political prisoners themselvesand passed out of the prison between July and October 1976. "On 17 May (1976) the following were removed from the jail without any explanation:Miguel Angel Mosse, Ricardo Alberto Otto Young, Alberto Svaguzza, Eduardo Alberto Hernandez, Luis Ricardo Veron and Diana Fidelman. Minutes later they were killed; the army alleged they were shot whilst trying to escape. On 25 May, Jose A. Pucheta and Carlos Sgandurra were taken out of their cells and killed (allegedlykilled during a rescue attempt)." "On 19 June at 23.15 hours while we were all sleeping Mirta Abdon de Maggi and Esther Barneris were taken away, gagged, handcuffed and blindfolded. The same night, they took Miguel Barreras and Claudio Zorrilla. All were subsequentlyshot with other detainees who were not from the prison (once again the official version was shot during an escape attempt)." "On 29 June, at about 20.00 hours they took away Marta Rosetti de Arqueoloa, who had been repeatedly threatenedwith death; she had one night's reprieve as they did not have a vehicle in which to move her." "On 30 June at 11.00 hours she was taken away by a lieutenant and a sergeant with Christian Funes; they were both shot in a lorry at the prison gates, allegedly whilst trying to escape." "On 5 July, during one of the infamous "dances" while doing press-ups, prisoner Raul Augusto Bauducco unintentionallytouched the officer in charge, who shot him dead. (The official statement was that the prisoner had tried to snatch the officer's gun.)" "On 14 July, Rene Moukarzel, a prisoner aged about 28, blindfolded,handcuffed and covered with blood indicating recent torture - was taken into the courtyard. We were all locked in our cells and the windows were shut. He was tortured for hours, during which time they constantly threw cold water over his head, keeping him blindfolded and gagged until he died, frozen in the same place that night." "August: prisoner Liliana Felisa Paez was taken away and, as in previous cases, was shot together with prisoner Tramontini." "On 12 August, Hugo Vaca Narvaja, Gustavo Adolfo de Breuil and Higinio ?rnaldo Toranzo were killed." (A communique from the 3rd Army Corps - which controls Cordoba explained that while the prisoners were being transported from the Penitentiary to a military court, the van had an accident. The three subversives tried to escape by hiding in some bushes; the escort was obliged to open fire, killing the three men. As it is almost certain that the men were handcuffed and unarmed, it is difficult to understand why it was necessary to shoot them.)

26-

The deaths of four more political prisoners occurred in the Penitentiaryin Cordoba in mid-October 1976. Death notices were published in the local newspaper Voz del Interior (15 October and 18 October 1976) for Miguel Angel Cevallos, Jorge Oscar Garcia, Pablo Alberto Ballustra and Marta Juana Gonzalez de Baronetto. While it is not possible to corroborate all the events described in these statements, it has been confirmed by official sources that between 17 May and 12 August 1976, 17 prisoners from the Penitentiary were executed and in all cases the authoritiesused the Le de Fu a (Law of Escape) to explain their deaths. The fact that so many prisoners appear to have died in such dubious circumstancesmust inevitablygive rise to the greatest anxiety about the safety of the political prison,:rs in Cordoba. Such anxiety could only be allayed if a public inquiry were conducted into these deaths, preferably by an international organization,and the state of incommunicadowere to be immediately lifted*. For it seems clear that safeguards for the well-being of prisoners can only be guaranteed when lawyers, friends and relatives are given access to the prisons. DISAPPEARANCES Amnesty Internationalhas received varying estimates - from priests, journalists,lawyers and political groups - of the number of people in Argentina who, over the last two and a half years, have disappeared or have been abducted. The estimates range from 3,000 to 30,000, but the figure most frequently quoted is about 15,000. The usual course of events, it appears, is for someone to be dragged from his home at night by men who identify themselvesas agents of the police or of the armed forces; when relatives proceed to make inquiries,by asking at the local police stations or barracks, and perhaps eventually filing writs of habeas cor us, they receive no informationor help. The missing person has "disappeared"- has joined that ghostly army which, since the coup, has allegedly absorbed between 2,000 and 5,000 people. It is difficult, for obvious reasons, to obtain precise statistics:many families fear reprisals, either against themselvesor against the abducted person, if they publicize the disappearance;and lawyers are systematicallydiscouraged from filing writs of habeas corpus. Nevertheless, despite such fears, the problem has become manifestly severe: in the last week of May 1976 a total of 200 writs of habeas corpus were filed in the central federal courts of Buenos Aires alone, and between late May and the beginning of August 1976, the government was receiving unofficially 10 complaints a day. In August, at the Ministry of the Interior, a register was opened in which the names of missing persons could be entered by their relatives; the daily limit for the receipt of such complaints was set by the government at 40. If in fact this maximum figure remained constant, the number of complaints recorded by November 1976 could well have been nearly 2,000.

However, at a meeting with representativesof the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of the Interior, the Amnesty Internationaldelegates were informed that the government had received, and were investigating,only 150 complaints. They were told that so-calleddisappeared people fell into three categories: those who choose to go "underground";those who emigrate; and those who are killed in clashes with the security forces. This explanation is not altogether consistent with the evidence available to Amnesty International. While it is possible that some of the missing persons may have gone into hiding or may have been killed in clashes with the security forces, this is not true of the majority of cases where the abduction has normally been witnessed by friends or relatives. Nor was the single example of emigrationoffered by these government officials an entirely convincing one. The officials cited the case of a Chilean, Mario Munoz Salas, who, though widely talked of as a "disappearedperson", later re-appeared in Austria. According to Amnesty International'srecords, this man, a trade-unionleader, was forced, after receiving threats to his life, to go into hiding in June 1976 (during a period in which many Latin American exiles who had taken refuge in Argentina were abducted or even killed). He

* Since January 1977, the political prisoners in the Cordoba Penitentiaryhave been able to receive visits.

-28-29fled to Austria in September 1976. During the mission, the Amnesty Internationaldelegates received personal testimony from the relatives of more than 100 missing persons. Together with documentationsubmitted to Amnesty International's fices, these testimonies of supply a good deal of informationabout the general circumstancessurrounding abductions, about the number and the location of unofficial detention centres, and about the true fate of at least some of the people allegedly killed in armed conflict with the security forces. The account of Rosa Daneman de Edelberg, relating the abduction of five members of her family, illustrates the manner in which such kidnappings usually occur:
II

home again, and is described as 'disappeared' the naval by authorities. I have ascertained that, on 14 July, Sergio rang his family saying that he was 'confinedto barracks'. "I later discovered that Sergio's wife Laura had been abducted and/or detained by armed persons who raided her home.

"Objectiveaccount of the facts so far: the disappearanceof the whole Tarnopolsky family, Hugo and Blanca and their children Sergio and Bettina, and daughterin-law Laura; the confiscation,robbery - or whatever it might be called - of valuables, including Hugo's car." Frequently,relatives of suspected "subversives"or left-wing activists have also been kidnapped. On 24 August 1976, the children and daughter-in-lawof the well-known radical Juan Gelman, spokesman for the Peronist Partido Autentico, were all abducted. The abductions are believed to have been in reprisal for Gelman's work abroad denouncing the military regime. Nora Eva Gelman (aged 19), Marcelo Ariel Gelman (aged 20) and his pregnant wife Claudia were all abducted from their homes in Buenos Aires by men claiming to be the Federal Police, who initially had been looking for Juan Gelman. None of the young people had been engaged in political activity since their schooldays,when they had belonged to the secondary school students'union. Nora Eva, who was in poor health following a serious road accident, was released after 10 days; the other two are still missing. Until recently, under Argentine law, there were only three circumstances in which an arrest could be made: if the criminal were apprehended in fla rante delicto; if a warrant had been issued by a judge; if (in the case of PEN prisoners) the executive had passed a decree. It has become apparent that after the coup these legal stipulations were widely disregarded. There is evidence that a large number of abductions were in fact illicit arrests made by official law-enforcingbodies. In Cordoba, for instance, some prisoners were detained "at the disposal of Area 311": that is to say, quite illegally on the order of the local commander. Numerous arrests, then, failed to conform even to the very broad provisions permitted under the State of Siege; the most minimal legal guarantees were totally ignored. Inevitably, the prisoner, bereft of his constitutionalrights, found his physical integrity at risk, as for instance in the cases described below of Father Patrick Rice and Dr Oscar Carlos Gatto. These irregularities re not generally regarded as part of government we policy, but as excesses committed by over-zealous sectors of the police and

because of my advanced age, 72 years, I usually have with me my grandchildren,who each take it in turns to sleep with ME for a week or two. At 1.00 o' clock in the morning of 15 July (1976), plainclothedpersons came to my house, bringing my son-in-law, Hugo Tarnopolsky,who knocked on the door and asked us to open it saying, 'Open up, Nona, it's Hugo'. When I opened it, I met my son-in-lawand the plainclothesmen who said they were the police and, with threats and blows, they asked for my grand-daughter, Bettina Tarnopolsky,who, for the reasons given before, had been sharing my house for a few days. After they had violently locked me out on the patio, I heard them taking away my grand-daughter, half-dressed,since most of her clothes were in her room. I also found, when I tried to contact my daughter Blance Edelberg de Tarnopolsky that these people who claimed to be policemen had ripped out the telephone, leaving me incommunicado. It took me some hours to recover from the physical and psychologicalviolence of my unexpected visitors; then I went down to the street and rang my relatives from a public telephone, as it was impossible to contact my daughter. Together with one of my sons, I went to the home of my grand-daughterBettina's parents, at Pena 2600, Dept A, Capital Federal, and found the front door completely destroyed and the place empty. "We asked the neighbours and the caretaker for information and found out that, some hours before the events at my house recounted above, plainclothesmen, claiming to be police, asked the caretake/ for the Tarnopolsky family and he shoued them the apartment they lived in. When these policemen received no immediateresponse to their shouts from my grand-daughter's parents, the apartmemt door was blown open, co that they could enter straight away, to detain and take away my daughter and son-in-law. It has to be remembered that this took place before the events at my home. "I would also point out that my grandson Sergic Tarnopolsky who_was finishing compulsorymilitary service at La Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (Navy School of Mechanics) - has not returned

-30the armed forces. However, in November, the government, instead of curbing this behaviour, sancioned it. Law 21.460 issued on 19 November 1976 authorizes the police or armed forces, when investigatingsubversivecrimes, to arrest anyone on suspicionalone, providing there are "strong indications or half-conclusive proofs of guilt". This procedure will be known as "summary pre-trial"and by this "simide and rapid investigation"the necessary evidence can quickly be gathered so that the competent court at a subsequent trial will be able to pronounce upon the guilt or innocenceof the accused. It appears that the effect of Law 21.460 is to transfer to the police and military what is rightly a function of the judiciary; for anyone arrested under this provision has already been half convicted. One of the most conclusive testimoniesconcerning unofficial detention and revealing the involvementof the police and army in abductions and subsequent torture - is that provided by Father Patrick Rice, an Irish worker priest:

-31at me you're a gonner.' I was beaten again. By this time I was in a bad state. I had lived in Argentina for six years and knew about the tortures and what to expect. "I was then submitted to water torture. My nose was held and water was poured in my mouth. You swallow a lot of water and it has a drowning effect. My interrogatorstold me that they belonged to the AAA (ArgentineAnti-Communist Alliance). The beatings and drenching with water continued throughoutTuesday 12 October at three or four hour intervals. "On Tuesday night they came and walked me to another room. I knew that electric shock treatment was coming. Electric shocks were applied systematicallyto various parts of my body. They were also giving electric shock treatment to Fatima in the same room. All day Wednesday 13 October they tortured Fatima - I could hear her screaming. "I was told by one of my interrogators: 'I am also against violence and for that reason I won't kill you.' I was then told that I was accused of putting up propaganda slogans against the army in Villa Soldati. I denied it. "On Thursday 14 October, I was brought to the person in charge and told: 'You have been in detention for 8 hours.' I was again bundled into the boot of a car and taken to the Coordinaci6nFederal (Police headquartersalso known as Su erintendenciade Seguridad Federal), 1550 Moreno Street, Buenos Aires. There I was kept in a small cell. The following day Fatima was brought in and put in a cell near me. Occasionallywe could talk with the other prisoners or sing. "I was told to say about my black eye and other signs of torture:'You fell downstairs. If you say anything else, you'll be found in the river.' A doctor gave me injections, bandages, et cetera. A week after my arrest I was washed, shaved and brought before the Irish Ambassador. I was quite disorientatedand the Ambassador realized that it wasn't in my interests to talk about ill-treatment. Later I signed a document which apparently cleared me of the charges. I thought therefore that I would be released in a few days, but I was transferred to Villa Devoto and then to La Plata prison where I was held for 4 or 5 weeks until my deportation. I was not tortured any more." The apparent complicity of the public authorities in abductions is supported by the fact that even on the occasions when police have been called to the scene of a kidnapping they have failed to intervene on the victim's behalf:

"On Monday, 11 October 1976 I was walking at about 8.30 pm in a dark part of Villa Soldati with a young Argentinian girl, Fatima Cabrera, who had come to me for help and advice. An old van drew up, a man got out and shouted to us 'Stopor I'll shoot!' We didn't know what to do. He fired a shot in the ground. He pointed his gun at us and asked for our documents. He seemed very nervous. He fired another shot in the air. Another man came round the corner, also carrying a gun. They bundled the two of us into the back of the van. At no time did they identify themselves. We did not know who they were or where they were taking us. "They took us to Police Station 36. I was taken into a room and my shirt was pulled up over my head and face. They asked my name and where I lived. I identifiedmyself as a priest. I was then beaten up. They told me: 'Now you'll find out that the Romans were very civilized towards the early Christians compared with what's going to happen to you.' During this beating I was not asked any questions. "Later that night I was put in the boot of a car, my hands were tied behind my back and my head was hooded. Fatima was put in the back seat. We were taken to what I thought was a barracks*. The hood made of rags was removed and replaced by a yellow canvas hood with string round the neck. The man changing the hood said to me: 'Don'tlook at me: If you look

* Father Rice's description of the barracks, which he believed was located just off the Ricchieri Autoroute and the Camino de Cintura, may indicate that he was detained in the Brigada Guemes.

-32-

33

"In the early morning of 29 April 1976, Dr Gatto and his wife were taken from their flat in Buenos Aires by men who identifiedthemselvesas members of the Comando de Fuerzas Con'untas del E'ercito,Marina Aeronautica (the Combined Forces of the Army, Navy and Air Force). According to neighbours,five 'officials' rst into the flat; they beat bu Dr Gatto and threatened to strangle his wife unless he confessed to subversiveor extremist ideas. When Dr Gatto and his wife refused to admit to having any connection with, or any knowledge of being implicated in anything subversive, political or extremist, the 'officials' ly beat them more on and took both of them away in official cars with sirens. "One of the neighbours who was an eyewitness to the 'arrest'called the Federal Police when he heard the noise, because he thought there had been a burglary. Uniformed police arrived on the spot before the abductors' had taken the couple away. When the abductors were leaving, the police questioned them, but when they showed their identity papers, the police let them take the couple away. The neighbours also stated that the abductors removed all the belongings of the Gatto couple*." The evidence that some missing persons are in fact being deprived of their liberty by law-enforcingbodies is overwhelming. The following is a list of some of the most frequently cited unofficial detention centres. There are many difficulties in obtaining first-hand informationabout these places, no t least because the prisoners are often kept blindfoldedor hooded throughout their detention so that they should not recognize their captors or fellow captives. Other reasons are that those who are fortunate enough to be released are too afraid to make any public statementsand that outside bodies find it almost impossible to check the location of the detention centres, since many of them are in restricted areas like the Campo de la At6mica near Ezeiza airport. In Buenos Aires La Escuela de Mecanica de la Armada (Navy Mechanics School) Campo de Mayo (army garrison) Campo de la Atomica or Ezeiza (near the Atomic Energy Commission) Brigade GUemes Superintendencia Seguridad Federal (also known as CoordinaciOn de Federal - Central Police Headquarters) Reparticion 1 y 59 La Plata Regimento No 1 de InfanteriaPatricios Brigada de Investigaciones Banfield de

In Cordoba Campo de la Rivera Campo de la Perla Pampa de Olaem In Tucuman Famailla Fronterita Santa Lucia Las Mesadas Escuela de Policia Departamentode EducaciOn Fisica Political Killin s and Deaths According to official statistics, the number of people who have died in politicalviolence in 1976 is 1,354; this figure includes: 391 guerrillas; 167 police or military; 151 unknown; 33 businessmen; 28 trade-unionists; 15 students or university teachers; 12 former politicians; 9 priests. Considerabledoubt has been voiced by lawyers, members of the church and journalists about the truth of official reports concerning some of these deat hs. Moreover, these reports are extremely terse communiques recording the shooti ng of "subversives"and rarely specifying even the identitiesof the victims. Since the coup, in the case of such incidents, the press may publish only these reports. There are several instances of people known to have been abducted or even officially detained who, months later, are reported by the authorities as ha ving been killed in a clash with security forces. These instances include the following cases: (1) On 8 combat of writs had a raid on 3 July by July 1976, military sources announced the death in Liliana Malamud and Abigail Attademo. Habeas corpus been filed for both girls after their arrest following a house in the Caseros district of Buenos Aires on men who identified themselvesas the Federal Police.

* Testimony of fellow prisoner subsequentlyreleased.

-34-(2) Ana Lia Delfina Magliaro was taken from her home in La Plata on 19 May 1976 during an anti-subversive operation in her neighbourhood. For 50 days her family was unable to obtain any informationabout her whereabouts,despite numerous inquiries at the Ministry of the Interior and the army and police headquarters. On 2 August 1976 they learnt by an anonymous telephone call that Cenorita Magliaro was detained in a federal police station (Comisaria34) in Buenos Aires. The family was able, on two occasions, to take her food and clothing, but on the third day, 4 August 1976, they were abruptly told that she had been transferredby the military police of the 1st Army Corps to the city of Mar del Plata. On 20 September 1976, the family filed a writ of habeas corpus. Two days later they were notified by the local police that Senorita Magliaro had been "killed in combat" in Mar del Plata. A photograph was produced showing the dead girl, gun in hand, in an unspecified location; according to her death certificate she had been killed on 2 September 1976. The authorities in Mar del Plata made no reference to the fact that she had been detained.

35-

"My idea of subversion is that of the left-wing terrorist organizations. Subversionor terrorism of the right is not the same thing. When the social body of the country has been contaminated by a disease that corrodes its entrails, it forms antibodies. These antibodies cannot be considered in the same way as the microbes. As the government controls and destroys the guerrilla, the action of the antibody will disappear, as is already happening. It is only a natural reaction to a sick body." Reprisals on a large scale have followed guerrilla outrages. There are clear signs that many of the victims were in fact unofficial prisoners who had been held as hostages. After the murder on 19 August 1976 of General Omar Actis, the head of the state committee organizing the 1978 World Football Cup, 30 bullet-ridden and dynamited bodies were found near the town of Pilar outside Buenos Aires. The police did not allow relatives of missing persons to see the bodies, but eyewitnessesclaimed that the corpses seemed to be those of people who had been detained for some time: they were not wearing ties, belts or shoelaces (all items of clothing which are routinely removed by police on arrest). It is believed that the Pilar victims had been held in the Coordinaci6nFederal in Buenos Aires.

On 9 October 1976, Senorita Magliaro'smother was given an official response to the habeas corpus: "This person was received into custody at the 34th Federal Police Station on 9 July 1976 at 12.00 after being detained by the army. She was transferredby the military police of 1st Army Corps to Mar del Plata on 4 August 1976." At no time was the girl's family given official notificationof a release, nor any explanationregarding her place of detention prior to 9 July 1976. Her sudden and violent death, in a town more than 400 kilometres from her home, when she was known to be in the custody of the army, makes the official account of her death improbable in the extreme. Although the death penalty has been re-introduced (it became law on 25 June 1976 - Lev 21.338), it has not as yet been officially implemented. The deaths of the girls mentioned above and those that occurred in the Cordoba Penitentiary (see section Prisons and Prisoners) suggest, however, that unofficial executions are commonly practised by the police and army, and that usually these are justified on the pretext of counter-subversion. Although right-wing terrorism has clearly been responsiblefor many brutal assassinations,the government has taken no action to curb it and apparently regards it as pardonable. In August 1976, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Admiral Cesar Guzzetti, after speaking at the United Nations in New York, made the following statement:

In some cases mass executions occur without any prior guerrilla provocation. On 6 October 1976, after many writs of habeas corpus and inquiries from relatives of missing persons, 34 bodies were exhumed from the cemetery in Moreno, a town to the south of Buenos Aires. Some of the bodies had had their hands tied behind their backs; others had been burned. It transpired that these people had probably been killed on 14 April 1976, the date of a large anti-subversionoperation in a suburb of Buenos Aireb; many of the bodies were identifiedas those of persons abducted on this date. For example, one of the corpses was that of a 22-year-old girl, Julia Rosa Dublowski, who had been arrested on 14 April 1976 at her home in Las Piedras de Remedios de Escalada by plainclothesmen who identified themselves as agents of the Federal Police and who told her parents that the girl was being taken to the Barracks of the 1st Regiment in Palermo. It has emerged that on 15 April 1976 the bodies of the victims were identifiedby the local police in Moreno; the police did not, however, notify any of the relatives.

It is apparent, in short, that in Argentina a large number of people who disappear are unofficially executed. This conclusion can be demonstrated by particular cases; it is also supported by the fact that regularly, in various places throughout the country, unidentified bodies are found - floating in rivers, at the bottom of lakes, decomposing on rubbish dumps or blown to pieces in quarries.

-37on the use of counter-subversive techniques,has undoubtedlyencouraged a systematicresort to ruthless measures against extremists. There is, among certain sectors of society, a widespread, though usually unspoken assumption that "subversives"have put themselvesbeyond the law and thereforedeserve all they get. This assumptionmay have disastrous results; as the Episcopal Conference stated in July 1976, after the murder of three priests and two seminarians in Belgrano, if certain forces are allowed to act arbitrarily,"what guarantees,what rights remain for the ordinary citizen?" The practice of torture - whatever the pretext given - cannot be acceptable to a civilized society. Torture, once permitted, is likely to become commonplace. In the present atmosphere in Argentina a citizen may well come under suspicion of harbouring extremist ideas if, for example, he possesses a copy of Pablo Neruda's poetry. If, in addition, such a person is picked up by members of the police or military, the practice of deferring an official arrest until his political record has been checked may well mean that in the interim he falls a victim to torture. The case is not merely hypothetical. It is in fact known that many innocent people have been tortured in the last few months. Maximo Pedro Victoria, a nuclear physicist who worked for the Argentine Atomic Energy Commission,was arrested in April 1976. He was initiallyheld on the ship Bahia A uirre, until he was moved to the Villa Devoto prison and detained at the disposal of the Executive Power. In early September 1976 he was transferredwith approximately50 other prisoners to the prison of Sierra Chica, about 350 kilometres south of the capital. During the transfer all the prisoners were continuouslyand savagely beaten. Their heads were shaved. On their arrival at the Sierra Chica prison they were forced to sign documents saying that they themselveswere responsible for the injuries sustainedduring transit. Those who refused were subject to further beatings and punishment. Maximo Victoria was released in October 1976; several teeth had been broken as a result of the beating and medical tests carried out after his release revealed that he had a serious protein and vitamin deficiency. There does not appear to have been any serious attempt by the Argentine government to stem the use of torture. According to reports, it is widely practised in the barracks of the military and police. Common methods of torture are: electric shocks applied to all parts of the body with the picana (prod); submarino": immersion in water with the head covered by a cloth hood; when this becomes wet, it sticks to the nose and mouth and when the victim is taken out of the water breathing is practically impossible; i bcris.ntcigs fists, truncheons,rifle butts and sticks; with - cigarette burns; plunging victims into ice cold baths; keeping victims hooded; - forcing prisoners to stand in awkward positions for hours; depriving prisoners of food, drink and sleep; the subjectionof women to all kinds of seaual abuse, including rape; in addition, pregnant women have been so badly beaten that they have

TORTURE Evidence about the widespread use of torture was received by Amnesty Internationalthroughout 1976 and during the mission itself. The personal testimoniesconcerningmaltreatment of prisoners have in some cases been corroboratedby subsequentmedical examination (e.g. in the case of Maximo Pedro Victoria, a nuclear physicist detained in April 1976; his case is dealt with later in this section), but more often by what has been observed by relatives of the victims. The testimoniesare varied and numerous; they have been made by people from all sectors of society: refugees, academics, journalists,lawyers, priests, trade unionists, students. Amnesty Internationalbelieves that in view of their great number, their circumstantial detail and the range and variety of their sources, these testimoniesprovide overwhelmingproof of the use of torture as an instrumentof policy. Torture is not new in Argentina. In March 1975, the International Commission of Jurists' Report, The Situation of Defence Lawyers in Argentina, affirmed that "cases of proven torture of political prisoners are common" and went on to quote a statementmade by the former President Arturo Frondizi (La Razon 11 March 1975): "It will not have escaped anyone's notice that torture is almost becoming an institution in our country. If on the one hand the terrible degradation of torture is not fought against, no attempt can be made at extirpating that other terrible degradation consisting of the death of innocent people in guerrilla warfare."

In talks with representativesof the Ministries of Justice, the Interior and Foreign Affairs, the Amnesty Internationaldelegates referred to the allegationsof torture made by some of the female prisoners in Villa Devoto. The Chef de Cabinet of the Ministry of the Interior, Senor Flouret, firmly stated that torture was absolutely forbidden and, if it occurred, was punished (there were, he admitted, isolated cases of official brutality). When asked for details of action taken against officials found guilty of torture and maltreatmentof prisoners he refused for reasons of security to divulge any information. He claimed that subversiveorganizationshad instructed their members to make allegationsof specific kinds of torture. It was, he added, the subversiveorganizationswho first resorted to torture. Clearly, the determinationof the Argentine government to seek out and check abuses would be more convincing if the actions taken were no longer conducted in secret. The conviction of the Argentine armed forces that they are fighting a "dirty war" which "goes beyond good and evil", and the success of which depends

-38miscarried; - exposure to attacks from savage dogs set on the prisoners by the guards. The police headquartersbuilding in Buenos Aires (CoordinaciEn Federal) is often mentioned by victims as a centre of torture. Isabel Gamba de Negrotti, a 27-year-oldnursery school teacher, was abducted from her home together with her husband and taken to Comisaria 39 in Villa Urquiza in Buenos Aires. Although she told the police that she was pregnant, she was punched and beaten, her hair was pulled and she was threatenedwith death. She was kept hooded and her coat was taken away. She was threatenedand beaten by about eight men, who said they would go and get her younger sister and mother. Later that evening, she had cramp spasms and began to feel ill. She could hear her husband screaming. The next morning she was taken to CoordinaciOnFederal so that her political activities could be investigated. The worst treatment began: "They took me to another room where they kicked me and punched me in the head. Then they undressed me and beat me on the legs, buttocks and shoulderswith somethingmade of rubber. This lasted a long time; I fell down several times and they made me get up and stand by supportingmyself on a table. They carried on beating me. While all this was going on they talked to me, insultedme and asked me about people I didn't know and things I didn't understand. I pleaded with them to leave me alone, or else I would lose my baby. I hadn't the strength to speak, the pain was so bad. "They started to give me electric shocks on my breasts, the side of my body and under my arms. They kept questioningme. They gave me electric shocks in the vagina and put a pillow over my mouth to stop me screaming. Some-one they called the 'colonel'came and said they were going to increase the voltage until I talked. They kept throwing water over my body and applying electric shocks all over." Two days later she miscarried. She is now in detention in Villa Devoto prison.

'39to the torture chamber. For an hour or an hour and a half, the electric prod was applied to the most sensitive parts of the body: testicles, thorax, mouth, etc; after this, the savage mercenaries subjectedme to what they called 'Asiantorture',which consisted of pitching me into drums of water while hanging by the legs. They did this four or five times until I lost consciousness. When I recovered, I was again tortured with the electric prod for another hour (approximately), but this time with three prods at the same time. I should also state that they injected me with some substance - possibly toxic or infectious- in the big toe of my right foot, in the testiclesand right arm, as well as pulling out the nails of my big toes and slashing a toe, then persistently applying the electric prod to these places.!' During his captivity he was told that if he collaboratedhe would be placed at the disposal of the Executive Power; if not, "they had legal ways of leaving no trace of me". His physical condition deteriorated;the only medical treatment he received was from another kidnap victim who had been held for a month. "The place I was in resembled a large shed." All those detained (about 20 or 30 young people) were referred to by numbers. He was released on 21 July and abandoned on highway No 7 at Jauregui. He made a deposition to the Jauregui police, supported by a medical certificate which noted: gangrene of the right foot, abscesses on both testicles and scars all over the body. From these testimoniesand many others recorded by Amnesty International, it is apparent that torture is used as an integral part of the countersubversive strategy by both official law-enforcingbodies and parapolice groups. Such practices constitute a serious violation of Article 5 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which affirms that: "No one should be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." The use of torture for any purpose whatsoever is categoricallyforbidden by Article 18 of the Constitutionand by the Penal Code of Argentina. At no time has anyone in public office suggested that this specific prohibition has been abrogated by the State of Siege or the emergency decrees of the military government.

Carlos Baro, a member of the Communist Party Youth Federation and a doctor, was abducted from his home of 16 July 1976 by a group of armed men. "We entered a building where I was led up a staircase to the first floor. I was immediatelystripped, beaten, laid on a bed and subjected to torture - the picana (electricprod) in particular, for about one and a half hours. During this savage torture, they questionedme about the possible whereaboutsof arms, printing materials and about people I didn't know. I spent a day and night without any food or water. On Saturday 17 July at about 3.00 pm I was taken back

-41whilst en route from Chile to Europe and was returned to Chile; in November 1975, two Paraguayan exiles, Alberto Alegre and BienvenidoArguello, were arrested by Paraguayan security agents and forcibly repatriated. The InternationalCommission of Jurists, in its report The A lication in Latin America of InternationalDeclarationsand ConventionsRelatin to As lum (September1975), strongly criticized the standard of protection given to refugees in South America and commented that "thousands of refugees who had fled to Argentina from Chile, Uruguay and other countries were profoundly demoralized and alarmed by the uncontrolledattacks made on them, in part by the notorious Argentine Anti-CommunistAlliance (AAA), the parapolice organization".* In 1975, the UNHCR reported that of their mandate refugees, three had been shot dead, three had disappeared and were assumed dead, 69 refugees had received expulsion orders and 35 had been detained at the disposal of the Executive Power.

REFUGEES

There have been a numbef of detailed reports about the precarious situationof political exiles in Argentina over the past two and a half years, notably the report of the InternationalCommission of Jurists: The A lication in Latin America of InternationalDeclarationsand Conventions Relatin to As-lum (September1975) and, more recently, a report of a fact-findingmission by three Canadian parliamentariansto Chile, Argentina and Uruguay: One Gi antic Prison (November1976). In preparing the following brief survey, Amnesty Internationalhas drawn on their findings, as well as on the personal testimoniesof refugees received at its own offices. Moreover, the delegation had several meetings with representatives of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Buenos Aires, who kindly organized a visit to two refugee hostels in the capital. Until fairly recently,Argentina was renowned as a country that readily accepted political exiles from its neighbouringLatin American states. As military coups ousted civilian governments in Paraguay (1954), Brazil (1964), Bolivia (1971) and in Chile and Uruguay (1973), thousands were forced to flee their countries to escape political persecution. There are no accurate figures of the number of Latin American political exiles and immigrants resident in Argentina today: the Argentine authorities said in October 1976 that over the previous five years half a million immigrantshad entered the country illegally. Only a few political exiles, about 300, have ever been formally granted political asylum in Argentina. Although the Argentine government is a signatory to the United Nations 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol on the Status of Refugees, it has maintained the geographical limitationof Article 1B(1)(a) of the Convention, recognizing as refugees (only) those affected "by events occurring in Europe". During the Peronist government of Maria Estela Martinez de Per6n, the security of the Latin American refugees living in Argentina steadily deteriorated. To be foreign became tantamount to being "subversive"and Chilean refugees in particular were threatened, intimidatedand assassinated by parapolicegroups. Moreover, there was evidence to suggest that the DINA, the Chilean secret police force, was operating in Argentina. (In December 1975, Senator Hipolito Solari Yrigoyen called for a special inquiry into the activities of the DINA in Argentina.) Violent attacks on foreign residents occurred with alarming frequency. For example, in September 1974, five Uruguayan refugees were abducted in Buenos Aires and weeks later their bodies were found on the outskirts of Montevideo. In October 1974, the former head of the Chilean Armed Forces under the Allende government,General Carlos Prats, was killed together with his wife by a bomb planted in his car. There were several cases of deportationof political exiles: in November 1974, William Beausire, an Anglo-Chilean,was kidnapped at Buenos Aires airport

Despite the assurances given by the government after the coup that internationallaws would be respected, there was a significantdeterioration in the situation of the refugees: they were the victims of an unprecedented surge of violence. Only four days after the coup, refugee centres throughout the country were raided by the police. In one incident,19 refugees, resident in the Jose C. Paz hostel in Buenos Aires, were detained, interrogated and tortured. Moreover, on 26 March 1976, a new decree was introduced (Communique44) which provided for the expulsion of foreigners for various reasons including "activitieswhich affect social peace, national security or public order" and failure to report previous convictions in their countries of origin. As most of the exiles were politicallyactive in their own countries, they feared that Communique 44 would make them liable to summary repatriation.

The general concern was such that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Admiral Cesar Guzzetti, gave public assurances on 5 April 1976 that refugees would not be repatriated against their will. (In any event, Argentina, as a signatory to the Treat on InternationalPenal Law (Montevideo1889) and the Convention on Extradition (Montevideo1933) had acceded to the principle of non-refoulement,i.e. not to return political refugees against their will by extraditionor otherwise to their country of origin.) However, these assurances were not borne out by subsequent events; moreover the abduction and killing of exiles markedly increased. In April 1976, three Uruguayans were abducted in Buenos Aires; one, a teacher, Telba Juarez, was found dead with five bullet wounds in her body, in an industrial suburb of Buenos Aires on 9 April. The two others, Ary Cabrera and Eduardo Chiazzola, are believed to be among the five people whose mutilated corpses were washed up on the shores of the River Plate which separatesArgentina from Uruguay.

* For further details concerning this period refer to the International Commission of Jurists Report: The A lication in Latin America of International Declarations and ConventionsRelatin to Asylum (September1975).

-42On 10 April 1976 a Chilean, Edgardo Enriquez Espinosa (the brother of one of the founders of the Movimiento de la Iz uierda Revolucionaria (Movementof the RevolutionaryLeft - MIR)) and a Brazilian girl, Regina Marcondes, were abducted in Buenos Aires. There are unconfirmedreports that Enriquez was taken back to Chile by DINA agents. have been seriously threatened*.

-43-

Refu ees in Detention Since the introductionof the State of Siege in November 1974, many refugees have been detained at the disposal of the Executive Power. The majority appear to have been arrested, not because they were involved in subversiveactivities in Argentina, but because of their political activity in their countries of origin, as is illustratedby the case of Dr Enrique Sepulveda Quezada. He is 65 years old and of Chilean nationality. A paediatricianby profession, he worked during President Allende's period of office as a journalist for the newspapers La Nacion and Clarin. He was one of the founding members of the Chilean MIR and served as its secretary general for two consecutiveperiods.

In May 1976, three prominent exiled politicianswere kidnapped and murdered. Uruguayan senator Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutierrez Ruiz (former president of the Uruguayan Chamber of Representatives) were taken from their homes in central Buenos Aires by armed men who identified themselves as police officers. On 22 May 1976, their bodies were found in an abandoned car, with the bullet-riddenbodies of two other Uruguayans, William Whitelaw Blanco and his wife Christina Barredo.

The former Bolivian President, Jugn Torres, disappeared on 26 May. His body was discovered on 27 May 1976, 60 miles outside the capital. On 6 July 1976 four young Uruguayans were kidnapped in Buenos Aires. They were held for one week in a "safe house" outside the capital, where they were tortured by members of the Uruguayan security forces. After their release on 13 July 1976, they went to France, where they were examined by members of Amnesty International'sDanish doctors' team who confirmed that the marks and symptoms of the victims were consistent with their allegationsof torture. In response to these and many other incidents, the UNHCR made appeals in June and October 1976 to all governments to give priority to retugees from Argentina seeking asylum. The High Commissioner emphasized the gravity of the situation in Argentina in his opening speech of the Twenty-SeventhSession of the UNHCR Executive Committee in Geneva on 5 October 1976: "It is important and urgent that traditionalcountries of resettlementand other countries come forward generously to alleviate the plight of these refugees."

He was initially arrested in Santiago de Chile in 1973. He was severely tortured in various centres in Chile, until one night his interrogatorsabandoned him in the streets of Santiago. He contacted friends and relatives and entered Argentina at the beginning of 1974.

Up until his arrest in Buenos Aires in February 1976, Dr Sepulveda had resisted taking part in any political activity in Argentina. His main concern had been to give humanitarianaid to compatriots in exile, and it is likely that this was the reason for his arrest.

Since February 1976, Dr Sepulveda has been held in preventive detention without charge or trial at the disposal of the Executive Power. He was initially held in Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, but has recently been transferredto La Plata. It is alleged that he has been subjected to severe torture since his detention in Argentina.

The Amnesty Internationaldelegation was told by a representativeof the UNHCR in Buenos Aires that there are at present in the country approximately12,000 registered refugees, a figure which remains fairly constant because as soon as the UNHCR manages to resettle refugees, more come forward seeking refugee status. Between 1 June and 30 September 1976, for instance,whereas the total number of people resettled outside of Argentina was 1,075, the total number given refugee status was 1,511. An official of the UNHCR informed the delegates that there were about 1,800 persons requiring immediate resettlement; in the month of October alone, 70 new urgent cases had been presented: 37 30 2 1 Uruguayans Chileans Bolivians Paraguayan

The condition of Dr Sepulveda'shealth is reported to be very serious indeed. The torture he has undergone combined with his advancing age and poor prison conditions are cause for grave concern for his life**.

There are cases of refugees accused of fairly minor offences, whose sentences have far exceeded the maximum penalty recommended by law. In August 1976, Andres Cultelli, a 56 year old Uruguayan, was tried for illicit association,possession of false documents and violation of border regulations between Argentina and Uruguay. His wife writes:

* There were 359 cases - 973 individuals- urgently requiring resettlement in December 1976. ** In January 1977, Dr Enrique Sepulveda Quezada was served with an expulsion order.

These cases, categorized by the UNHCR as urgent, are mainly Uruguayan and Chilean refugees who have been officially detained or expelled or whose lives

-44"My husbandwas deprivedof all legal counsel at his trial. A universalprincipleof law states that nulla ena sine le e. Nevertheless, ge Spangenberg, Jud who condemnedmy husband to 14 years in prison (althoughthe maximum penalty providedfor by Law 20.840 is 8 years and the Federal Prosecutorasked for 5 years) based this incrediblesentenceon the followingcharges: possessionof two books by Marx, which at the time of purchase,and even now, are freely sold in Argentina; illicitassociation. Judge Spangenberg accused Cultelliof 'givingtalks on Marxist economy'to groups of fellow Uruguayanexiles. Cultelli admits such conversations k place, but no law too forbids them and no member of the Argentine (illegal) ERP (E'grcito Revolucionario del Pueblo) ever attendedthem; formermembershipof the UruguayanSocialistParty which the judge dubs 'Marxist', reas in fact it whe was Social-Democratmy husband acted as Secretary ; to its group of congressmenfrom 1957 to 1962, as of course it was legally recognized; alleged formermembershipof the NationalLiberation Movement (Tupamaros) Uruguay. If that were the in case, the Uruguayangovernment, after arresting Cultelli in August 1970, would hardly have imposed the minimum penaltyof 10 months in prison. In any case, he has already been tried for this alleged offence in Uruguay six years ago and Argentine law does not and cannot penalizea Uruguayanfor having supposedly belonged in the past, in his own country, to this or any other politicalparty. "Neither in Argentinanor in any other country has Andres Cultelli committedany unlawfulact, except that of using false identitypapers in order to protect himself against the 'DeathSquads' whose victims, , such as former UruguayanSenatorMichelini,are numberedby the hundreds. And two years in prison seem more than enough to pay for such a minor transgression. "Living conditionsin the Sierra Chica prison are worse than ever; he is only allowed out of his anall single cell three times a week for one hour at a time, and his health is failing. He has a heart conditionand is half blind; in any event, at his age - 56 a prison term of 14 years is equivalentto a death sentence." Refugees in preventivedetention,unlike nationals,have been allowed to leave the country under an expulsionorder, providingthat they are able to obtain -45a visa for another country. A considerable number have been able to take advantageof this ruling; in November 1976 the UruguayanSenatorEnrique Erro, who had been held in Argentinaat the disposalof the ExecutivePower for nearly two years, was finally expelled. Refoulement Amnesty International particularly is concernedabout the abductions and subsequentrefoulement Uruguayanexiles in Buenos Aires. About 70 of Uruguayans,includingeight children,have been abducted in Argentina since the coup. In some cases the victims were releasedor reappearedmonths later in detention in Uruguay. Others were killed or are still missing. During July and August 1976, evidencecame to light that Uruguayan security forces were responsiblefor at least some of the disappearances. In June and July 1976, about 30 Uruguayansliving in Buenos Aires were abducted. Among the kidnappedwere: MargaritaMichelini,the daughterof the murdered UruguayanSenator;two trade unionists,Gerardo Gatti and Leon Duarte; three members of the RodriguezLarreta family. There was no information about their fate until August when a Uruguayanrefugee,Washington Perez, arrived in Sweden. He gave a full testimonyof how he had been forced by Uruguayanofficials,some of whom he recognized,to act as an intermediary between them and a Uruguayanpoliticalgroup. The officialswanted Washington Perez, in exchangefor the life of Gerardo Gatti, to transmita demand for ransom to members of the Workers StudentsResistanceParty (Resistencia Obrera Estudiantil- ROE). On severaloccasions in mid-July, he was driven to a hideout near the capitalwhere Gatti was being held. Gatti had been torturedand was in a very poor state of health. The negotiations eventually broke down on 17 July. The Uruguayans (among them he recognizedCommissar Campos Hermida) then showed him another prisoner,this time Legn Duarte (abductedin Buenos Aires on 13 July 1976) and asked Perez to carry a similar ransom demand for his release to the ROE group. Perez suspectedthat the negotiations were a trap and that his own life and the lives of his family were in danger, so he left the country under UNHCR protection*. In Septemberand October 1976, more Uruguayanexiles were abducted in Buenos Aires. There was no further news about the missing refugeesuntil 28 October,when the UruguayanJoint Armed Forces issued an officialcommunique announcingthe detention in Uruguay of 62 persons accused of subversive activities. On 29 October, the same source provided extensiveinformation about the alleged activitiesof the group, but named only 17 of the 62 prisoners. Fourteenof those named were among the group of 26 Uruguayans abducted in Buenos Aires on 13/14 July 1976; the other three had all disappearedon 27/28 March, whilst travellingfrom Argentina to Uruguay (ElidaAlvarez, Ricardo Gil Iribarneand Luis F. Ferreira)and until the communiquewas publishedwere feared to have been killed. According to the

* See Appendix 3 for WashingtonPerez' testimonyconcerningthe operationsof Uruguayan securityforces in Argentina.

46-

-47the prison in Posadas where she and her husband were being held and handed over to members of the Paraguayan army. She had allegedly been badly tortured. She is now detained in Paraguay in the Penal de Emboscada, a new prison camp 40 kilometres to the north of Asuncion. Her physical condition is believed to be poor. Her husband is still detained in Argentina. Clearly, persons with expulsion orders are entitled to choose a second country of asylum; the forcible deportation of Gladys Meillinger can therefore be seen as another example of refoulementby the Argentine authorities. Such incidents have, understandably,increased the fears of the political refugees in Argentina. Consequently,there was a very poor response when the Argentine government issued Decree 1438/76 on 1 September 1976 obliging all immigrantswithout permanent residence in Argentina to register with the Department of Immigrationbefore the end of December 1976 . (The original deadline was 31 October 1976.) Refugees who register have to provide details about their former political activities and they fear that these details will be handed over to the security police of their own countries.

communique the Uruguayan authorities claimed that they had unearthed a new subversiveorganizationcalled the People's Victory Party - Partido or la Victoria del Pueblo (PVP) and stated that the 62 arrested were all members. The Uruguayan authorities claimed that some of these people had faked abductions (auto-secuestros) Argentina in order to enter Uruguay in clandestinely,to further the-aims of their party. The aims of the PVP were said to include plans to assassinate several high-rankingUruguayan government officials and organize a world-wide campaign of propaganda to bring the Argentine and Uruguayan governments into disrepute. There are several discrepanciesbetween the Uruguayan government's explanationof the arrests and the facts about the case known to Amnesty International;the theory of faked abductions cannot be seriouslyupheld when there are reliable eyewitnessesto confirm that the kidnappings took place in Argentina. Writs of habeas cor us were filed immediatelyafter the kidnappingsand in seven cases by the UNHCR itself. Two of the "prisoners"were living in Buenos Aires under the protection of the UNHCR. One of the 14 named prisoners, Sara R. Mendez Lamporio, had given birth only 21 days before her disappearance;the notion that she had entered Uruguay clandestinelyto undertake subversive activities is implausible*. In December 1976, the Uruguayans acknowledgedthat other missing refugees were also in their custody: Margarita Michelini and her husband; Enrique Larreta and his wife Raquel Nogueira de Rodriguez Larreta. They released Enrique Rodriguez Larreta (father of the above). However, there are about 38 adults and eight children still unaccounted for who are presumed to be in the hands of the Uruguayan authorities. It is apparent that in at least 17 cases the abductions of Uruguayan refugees in Buenos Aires were in fact carried out by agents of the Uruguayan security forces. The scale of the kidnappings inevitably implies the cooperationof some members of the Argentine armed forces and police. The refoulement of these 17 Uruguayans constitutes a serious breach by the Argentine government of the Treaty on InternationalPenal Law (Montevideo 1889) and the Convention on Extradition (Montevideo1933), to which it is a signatory.

There has also been a recent case of deportation involvinga Paraguayan citizen, Dr Gladys Meillinger de Saneman, a medical doctor, and her husband, Rodolfo Jorge Saneman, a public accountant, both Paraguayan political exiles who were arrested on 26 March 1976 in the town of Posadas in the Province of Misiones. (Both Gladys Meillinger de Saneman and Rodolfo Saneman are members of the Paraguayan political party Movimiento del Partido Colorado - MOPOCO, which is a wing of the ruling Colorado Party of Paraguay engaged in nonviolent opposition to the regime of President Alfredo Stroessner.) They were detained without charge at the disposal of the Executive Power and given expulsion orders. On 29 July 1976, Dr Meillinger de Saneman was removed from

See Apperdix 4 for cases of refoulementof Uruguayan refugees.

-49though in many cases they eventually discover that the disappeared person is dead. The neglect of human rights in Argentina is all the more alarming in that it has no foreseeableend. According to provisionsin the Constitution, the State of Siege may be declared only for a specifiedperiod'oftime; but no limit has ever been fixed by the present or the previousgovernment. The citizensof Argentina thereforeface an indefiniteperiod without constitutional rantees;prisonersin preventivedetentionface indefinite gua incarceration. There is no limit to the durationof the military government, no limit to the period a prisonermay be held incommunicado and no limit to the time that may elapse before he is brought to trial. The current legislationin Argentina,togetherwith the latitudeallowed to various securityforces, has then quite definitelyled to gross violations of basic human rights. According to the government,the draconianlegislation has been necessaryto "restorefull legal and social order" and to implement the requiredprogram of "nationalreorganization".A governmentofficial explainedto the Amnesty International egation: del "Systematicsubversionand terrorismhave cost the lives of many police and military and have compromisedthe securityof the Argentine people. These activitieshave been repudiatedby all citizens. If anybody violates human rights in Argentina,murdering, torturingand bombing, it is undoubtedlythe terrorists. These people use violence for its own sake or to create chaos and destruction. We understandthat the state has a right to defend itself,using whatever force is necessary." It is true that any impartialobservermust condemn the outragescommitted by left-wingextremistgroups: they have detonatedbombs in barracksand police stations,have kidnappedand assassinated bers of the military and mem business executives. However, it does not seem to Amnesty International t tha terroristviolencemay be held to justify the extreme,and extensive, measures taken since the coup by the government. Firstly, it is doubtful whether these measures are in fact entirelydefensive,no more than what is necessaryto contain guerrillaviolence. The military itself admits that this violence has been greatly reduced* - yet abductions,tortureand executionsapparentlycommittedby the securityforces continueunabated. In 1976, left-wingextremists were allegedlyresponsiblefor some 400-500 deaths; the securityforces and parapolicegroups for over 1,000. Secondly,even if these measures were justifiableas a counter-response extremistprovocation, to the undeniablefact would remain that they also strike at innocentcitizens. Given the present legislation, one can rely on legal protection, no and in view of the practiceof the securityforces,no one is safe from abduction

CONCLUSION In view of the current turmoil in Argentina,a report concernedwith human rights must concludeby asking two basic questions. First, to what extent are human rights respectedand defendedby the governmentand to what extent are they violated? Secondly,to what extent are the violations explicableor necessary? On both of these questions,the assertionsof the governmentare not supportedby the facts availableto Amnesty International. After the coup in March 1976, General Videla stated that the military governmenthad come to power "not to trampleon liberty but to consolidate it, not to twist justicebut to impose it". But legislation passed since the coup has progressively ded the individual's erty and numerous ero lib members of the securityforces have trampledon that which remains. Justice has been pervertedtwice - by the imposition laws which Contravenethe of Constitution, and by the reluctanceof the securityforces to acknowledge any laws at all. The state of martial law which is currentlyin force deprives all the citizens in Argentinaof the most fundamental civil and politicalrights, their constitutional rantees. What it means in practice is that merely on gua suspicionof subversion, citizenmay be arrestedor abducted,held for a a long period incommunicado, turedand perhaps even put to death. He has tor no legal safeguardsagainst these measures,and, if it happens that he is released,no hope of legal redress. Fundamentalconstitutional ranteeshave been suspendedsince the coup, gua includingthe importantRight of Option, which is now - unconstitutionally at the discretionof the ExecutivePower. Military tribunalshave been set up for all crimes pertainingto subversion;sweepingpowers of arrest and detentionhave been conferredon the police. Furthermore, y of the decrees man of the military junta free the police and the armed forces from any legal liabilityin the event of persons innocentof any subversiveinvolvement or intentionbeing detained,injuredor killed. The official suspension and unofficialneglect of fundamentallegal rights has had alarmingresults. Since the coup, the number of political prisonershas increased- and more than three-quarters these persons are of detainedat the disposalof the ExecutivePower: they have never been charged,have never been tried, and may be held indefinitely. Although, accordingto the Constitution, h prisonersare not supposedto be punished, suc they are held in punitiveconditions. There is evidencethat many have been maltreatedduring transfersand that the majority of them have been tortured as a matter of routine. Frequently,torturehas been inflictedon people who have not been officiallyarrestedbut merely unofficially abducted. The number of abductionshas increasedsince the coup. Friends and relatives find it all but impossibleto ascertainthe whereaboutsof disappearedpersons,

* Speech of GeneralMenendez in Famailla in the Provinceof Tucuman to celebratethe "Day of the Flag" (20 June 1976): "Subversionis generallyin retreat and on the way to collapse."

-50and torture. Amnesty International lievesthere is overwhelmingeviden be ce that many innocentcitizenshave been imprisoned thout trial, have been wi torturedand have been killed. The actions taken against subversives ve ha thereforebeen self-defeating: order to restore security,an atmosphe in re of terror has been established; order to counter illegalviolence,le in gal safeguardshave been removed and violent illegalities ndoned. co

RECOMMENDATIONS ISING OUT OF A MISSION TO ARGENTINA AR ON BEHALF OF STY INTERNATIONAL OM 6 - 15 NOVEMBER 1976 FR SUBMITTEDTO THE ARGENTINIANGOVERNMENTIN FEBRUARY 1977 In view of the severe criticismscontainedin this report, we recommend that the Argentiniangovernmentinvite the United Nations to send a miss ion to investigate e situationof human rights in Argentinaat an early th opportunity. Given the present anxiety about the whereaboutsand securityof the detainees,we recommendthat the governmentimmediately blish a full li pu st of all its prisoners. In view of the many allegations gardingpoor conditionsand maltreatme re nt of prisoners,we recommendthat the ArgentinianauthoritiesenforceArti cle 18 of the ArgentinianConstitution d the United Nations StandardMinimum Ru an les for the Treatmentof Prisoners. Given the large number of politically tivateddeaths by armed groups, mo Amnesty International ges that all those responsiblebe sought out and ur brought to trial. In view of the widespreaduse of torture,Amnesty International fers re the Argentiniangovernmentto the Resolutionadopted by the General Asse mbly of the United Nations 3452 0000 on 9 December 1975 and urges the Argent inian governmentto implementthe recommendations ntainedtherein. co Given the uncertainty relativesof missing persons about their fate, of we recommendthat a list of all politically tivateddeaths and register mo ed disappearances immediately blished. Amnesty International ges th be pu ur at the authoritiesimmediately vestigate e disappearance the persons in th of listed in Appendix 6. In view of the large number of assaultsand attacks on Latin American refugeesduring 1976, we urge the Argentiniangovernmentto take immediat e steps to ensure their full protection. We further recommendthat the Argentiniangovernmentwithdraw the geographical mitationcontainedin li Article 1B(1)(a)of the United Nations 1951 Conventionon the Status of Refugeesand do all in its power to assist the United Nations High Commis sion for Refugees in the peacefulresettlement refugees. of Consideringthat no citizen should be indefinitely privedof his de constitutional ghts,we urge the Argentiniangovernmentto announcea ri time limit for the State of Siege.

APPENDIX 1 TESTIMONY,CONCERNING MILITARY TRIBUNALS In the Penal Unit Unidad 2 of La Plata prison, there is a group of youths from Mendoza who had been arrested immediatelyafter the coup of 24 March 1976 and charged with being guerrillas. They were brought before the first Conse.o de Guerra (militarytribunal) that was set up in the province after having been subjected to torture. Before they were sentenced, they were given a parody of a defence. Each could choose from a list of officers a defence attorney: these officers did not even know how to present a case for the defence. The following prisoners were forced by threats and intimidationinto accepting sentences of between 6 months and 29 years: Victor Manuel Sasatini Nelida Lucia Allegrini de Sasatini RaG1 Eduardo Acuarina Jaime Arturo Pedroza Carlos Alberto Roca Antonio Sirio Vignoni Eugenio Ernesto Paris Graciela del Carmen Liliana Ines Togueti Nicolas Antonio Zarate

APPENDIX 2 LORD AVEBURY'S ACCOUNT OF HIS VISIT TO VILLA DEVOTO ON TUESDAY 9 NOVEMBER 1976 At the introductorydiscussion with the Governor, I was told that the total number of prisoners held in Villa Devoto was 2,830, of which there were 560 detained at the disposal of the Executive Power, all held in a separate part of the prison. Thirty-six of these were men, the rest women. The Governor would not confirm that Villa Devoto was being converted to make it an exclusivelywomen's prison, a matter which he said was a decision for the superior penal authorities. But since an additional cell block was being prepared for the reception of women, and the only cell I visited in the men's block, which had accommodationfor four, contained one man, it appears probable that shortly all the men will be transferredout. Interviewswere conducted with six of the prisoners in the presence of about 20 prison officials, including the Governor. Summaries of four interviews are given; in each case I give the account provided by Senor Flouret (representative the Ministry of Interior at a later meeting with the of Amnesty Internationaldelegation) on these prisoners. 1. Ana Inez Gonzalez

Sergio Muiioz Martinez: London, December 1976

She was arrested on 7 February 1975, and had been in this cell for the last 11 months. She was first taken from the street in San Justo to the CoordinacionFederal, where she was tortured by people in civilian clothes on the secona tloor of the building. She was subjected to electric shock treatment, repeated blows, the "submarine",and she was raped. She also had to watch her husband being tortured; both of them were kept blindfoldedduring that first week for the entire time. She was then taken to the third floor, and for the first time the relatives who had previouslymade inquiries and been told that she was not at the CoordinaciGnFederal were informed that she was in fact being held there. She was then held for 18 days on the third floor before being transferred to Villa Devoto where, for the first time, she was seen by a doctor. The reason for this, she said, was that marks left by the electric shock treatment were no longer visible by that time. (When I mentioned this history at the meeting with the officials on Wednesday, Senor Flouret said:"That shows the story could not have been true, because everyone knows that marks left by the picana (electricprod) last for more than 18 days." In other words, the icana is so common that it is a matter of general knowledge how long it takes for the marks to disappear.) She said that Villa Devoto was by no means a typical prison. The regime there was very mild compared with many of the prisons in the interior. She also said that there were plenty of women who could tell far worse stories and that she knew of women who had been in cells in Villa Devoto whose bodies had been subsequentlyfound dumped outside the prison. She said I ought to visit the hospital, where there were people crippled by torture.

-54She is charged with "illicit association"but she did not know with what association she was alleged to have conspired. Originally, she had refused to testify because no lawyer had been appointed, but since arriving at this prison she had had the services of a lawyer. Senor Flouret stated that Ana Inez Gonzalez was arrested in Tucuman where she had a "people's prison" in her home. A large cache of weapons was found there by the police, as well as subversive literature. At the house next door a clandestineprinting press was discovered. She was arrested on 27 February 1975. _When I expressed surprise at the length of time it_was taking to bring Senorita Gonzalez to trial, if the evidence was as Senor Flouret described, he said that the cell structure and self-defencemechanisms of the terroristorganizationsmade a full investigationimpossible. Isabel Eckerl de Baez Senora de Baez said that her husband, who had disappeared about 10 months ago, had been suspected of murdering a Colonel in Mar del Plata. At the time of the murder he was at work. A number of armed men went to look for him at his parents' house, and when they found he was not there they shot and killed his parents and his brother and they also picked up Senora de Baez' mother and tortured her. She was already in custody herself at the time of these events, having been arrested by the provincial police in 1975. She is charged with "illicit association". A lawyer was appointed to defend her in October 1975, but she had not seen him yet. She had only been in Villa Devoto for two weeks and before that was in Olmos prison. Throughout the transfer, the prisoners were struck repeated blows with truncheonsand made to stand throughouta journey which lasted two hours in meat wagons; on the day of the transfer they were given nothing to eat for 12 hours. She said that one woman with a new-born baby was unable to feed it during the journey because she was handcuffed.

-55Senor Flouret said that Senora Hobson had been arrested on 2 June 1976 and faced charges for subvErsiveactivity and possessionof weapons which were found in her house.

4.

Alicia Carlota Marambio

She said she had been in prison for 3 years; she did not know what allegations there were against her, but she had been held under Law 2023 as a "highly dangerous" prisoner. This regime includes regular whole-body searches, which are carried out at random - even at meal-times. She said that sometimes male prison staff had been present throughout these procedures - an allegation which was strenuouslydenied by the Governor. She said that she had made frequent complaints but had not been allowed to see the Governer. She also said that tortures were committed in private houses and that people in the prison knew about them. . The prison Governor said afterwards that Senorlta Marambio had deliberatelyprolonged her detention so as to prevent the case from coming to trial, by asking her previous lawyer to resign. He said that she was suspected of 18 murders, including that of Lt Colonel Ybarzabal, who was kidnapped by terrorists,held for 1 year and then murdered. At the time of his kidnapping, the colonel weighed 80 kilos, and when his body was recovered, 40*

Senor Flouret explained that Senora de Baez was arrested with a group of Montoneros on 29 July 1975; they had resisted arrest using firearms. Some of them were allegedly responsiblefor the murder of Colonel Reyes, the commanding officer of a regiment in Mar del Plata. He said that judicial proceedingswere still in the initial stages and that the reason for the delay was again caused by the problems of investigatingterrorist organizations. Mar arita Juana Hobson Senorita Hobson was arrested in a car with her boyfriend on 20 May 1976. They were both taken to CoordinaciGnFederal in Buenos Aires where she was blindfoldedand maltreated. She preferred not to describe in detail what had happened to her. After one month in CoordinacionFederal, she was moved to Villa Devoto. She does not know what happened to her boyfriend. She told me that she was accused of being in possession of arms, but she did not know who was supposed to be investigatingthe case and she had not seen her lawyer for over one and a half months.

* On his arrival in London, Father Patrick Rice, an Irish worker priest detained in Argentina on 11 October 1976 and released in November, informed Amnesty Internationalthat scme of the women whom Lord Avebury had spoken to in Villa Devoto prison had been put into punishmentcells and were kept hooded. The husband of one of the women prisoners concerned,who was detained in La Plata, had given Father Rice this information.

-57others, but he had been detained by the Argentine Federal Police, during the time he was there...." What a tremendous shock when comrade Gatti appeared. I had known him since 1952. Gatti was active in the Uruguayan Students' Federation, he was also a founder of the Convenciiin Nacional de Trabajadores of Uruguay and a member of ResistenciaObrera Estudiantil. I embraced Gatti and saw that his left arm was badly infected and his whole arm was inflamed. Gatti told me that it had not been his idea to involve me in this, and that he had been detained for four or five days. (Gatti was abducted on 10 June 1976.)

APPENDIX 3 TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE OPERATIONS OF URUGUAYAN SECURITY FORCES IN ARGENTINA I arrived on 13/14 August 1976, having left Argentina for this country (Sweden). I and my family had left Uruguay for Argentina two and a half years ago, and we were living in Moron, Province of Buenos Aires.

On 13 June about 4.00 to 4.15 am people burst violently into my house demanding whether Washington Perez lived there. We found ourselves confronted with a group of eight heavily armed people. They identified themselves as Uruguayans and Argentinians. They said they had someone they wanted me to see and that there was nothing against me in Argentina as I was working and living in the country with my family in complete legality. One of them said to me: "Look Perro, be quiet because there are no problems, you know me and you know some people who are here." My sons said that one of them should be allowed to accompany me, to which they agreed. We drove for 20 or 25 minutes. During the journey they communicated by radio with people at some headquarters telling them how far away they were and how long they would take to get there.

The Argentinian colonel said: "Well Gatti, we are going to make a concrete suggestion to Don Perro. We want a sum of money for Gatti - a big sum of money." They also proposed to release some 10 comrades detained in Uruguay. Gatti's eyes were very inflamed and he sat down with great difficulty. They left us alone so that Gatti could explain to me whom I should contact. Gerardo and I both felt that this group of individualswere responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Senators Michelini and Gutierrez Ruiz in Argentina as they had used an expression when talking to us about hurrying up the negotiations that had been used when Michelini was taken from his home: "your time is up" (11e o la hora).

The Uruguayan promised that I would not be followed. They warned me to make contact as quickly as possible for Gatti's and my own safety. They then referred to a meal I had recently had at Flores railway station. Campos Hermida boasted: "Look, we could have gone to another country in Latin America or Europe but we chose you as intermediary." They repeated that they would now accompany me and drop me near my home. Before leaving they took me to another room, that is to the same room where they had first taken me. One of them said: "We repeat what we have already said today: don't go to anyone but the designated contact; we aren't interested in who it is, but that you find him as soon as possible." While this person was talking, another Argentinian colonel opened a strong box containing large sums of Argentinian and Uruguayan money together with passports and Argentinian identity cards. They said they would give me a certain amount of money if they had to, but I didn't believe them at all. They also said there would be no problem in my going to another country oncc my role as intermediarywas over. They added; "We repeat that you try to do this as quickly as possible because we know there are ways in which the friends of Gatti can obtain the money we want through unions and solidarityorganizationsin Europe." I was then driven with my son to the Ramos Mejia railway station where they left us.

We arrived, a metal door was raised and we drove into what appeared to be a garage; because of the light I could see other cars and vans - it was very cold. I was taken out of the car and made to climb some stairs initially made of cement but later of wood. I went through a door which was then closed and the scarf covering my eyes was removed.

I found myself with the same group of men who had been to my house and some others whom I had not seen before. When I entered the room I identified the man who had spoken to me at my home with absolute certainty as a commissar of the Uruguayan police intelligence,Commissar Campos Hermida - I knew him from the time I was arrested in Uruguay. With him was someone they called chief and colonel, also a Uruguayan. I was also able to identify the brother of Colonel Barrios who is commander of the Libertad prison. There was also a captain in the Uruguayan police intelligence,a police investigatorwhose name I am uncertain about. There was also an Argentinian colonel*. He told me I had been picked because I was not politically involved. They said there were only routine problems in Uruguay and that I would be able to return there in two or three months. The Argentine colonel then said: "Look, we have a friend of yours whom we want you to speak to - fortunatelywe managed to snatch this person from a place where he had been detained. We don't want to blame

On Tuesday, I managed to contact a friend of Gatti, and outlined the proposal made. The ransom in exchange for the release of 10 comrades in Uruguay, and the release of Gatti via an embassy. I told them speed was essential. Gatti's friends distrusted the "gang". Later that week the comrades told me where to collect an envelope

* He deduced this because of his uniform, Argentinian accent and because he was addressed as colonel by the others.

- 58-

- 59-

containing the reply to the abductors. That same night the "gang" called me only 20 minutes or so after I had collected the packet to say they were coming to fetch me. I was picked up by a Ford Falcon or Torino (police use this type of car without registrationplates). I was taken hooded to the same place again. They mentioned that they were a nazi fascist group and there was a framed picture of,Hitler on the wall. The gang reacted furiously to the comrades' demands that they have a note written in Gatti's own hand and guarantees about his physical and mental health. I was taken to see Gatti who was in bed; his arm was less inflamed and he had been to see a surgeon. One of the men, a policeman, joked and said that he had been to the Campo de Mayo (the largest military barracks in the Province of Buenos Aires). This caused much anger among the captors. Gatti was recovering a little but he told me that he had been hung for he didn't know how long and badly tortured. He had been hung with his arms above his head and the handcuffs had cut into his left arm. Then the officials reappeared with a photographerwho took a shot of Gatti in bed showing his arm and me holding a copy of that day's La Tarde (29-30 June 1976) which I had bought. I was instructed to hand the photograph over to Gatti's comrades. On this occasion I was not allowed to speak with Gatti alone. They warned me to speed up the negotiationsbecause the gang was getting nervous. Perez made contact once more with the comrades and was then collected by the gang. A week must have elapsed. This time when they picked me up the second car which was a support vehicle could not be seen; they did a U-turn to see what had happened to them. The support car had been interceptedby the Argentinian plainclothespolice. I could see all this through the car back window. I saw the Colonel take out a document - he was holding a weapon - after a minute's discussion he returned to the car and said everythingwas alright. I was then taken again to the same place. I saw Gatti who said he was getting better. He said he was worried about me and said "what a terrible job you have". The gang opened the note from the comrades and exclaimed: "These people are messing us around too much. They're just pulling our legs; they want nude photos (front and profile) and tapes. That's too much. Yes, we are going to wipe them out. The time has come." I was sent away with yet another message for the comrades. I was also given later a handwritten letter from Gatti outlining the proposal that he be released through an embassy. UnfortunatelyI was unable to make contact with the comrades. On about 17 July the "gang" collectedme again. They came to get me from the kiosk where I sold newspapers. They were in a more serious mood this time. One of them held a machine gun and another a large rifle and motioned me to get in the car. There was a police car nearby about 40 - 50 metres from the corner but the gang could stand there in plain view with their weapons without having problems. I was taken to the same place. They asked if I had made contact. I had to say no. One then said: "Well give it back to me, it's all over now.n I asked what he meant, but he just took back the letter and tore it up saying "the Gatti business is over". I asked to see Gatti but they told me I couldn't, that I was only the mediator. They told me aggressivelynot to mention Gatti again.

They told me there was a person they wanted me to see. There were more of them than before that night. Some people appeared to have just come from Uruguay, both police and military. Someone came in a few minutes later. If I had been scared the first time I had seen Gatti, you can imagine what I felt when I saw someone appear with his hands tied with a long rope, his head covered with a white scarf, like a mummy. They removed the scarf and I saw Leon Duarte, prominent Uruguayan trade unionist, founding member of the ConvenciOn Nacional de los Trabajadores,a member of Resistencia Obrera Estudiantiland a personal friend. He stood in a battered jacket and a dirty shirt and had clear signs of torture. He was barefoot and his feet were completely white. He had obviously been standing a long time in some cold place; he was in a very poor state. We embraced. I asked Duarte what they had meant by "the Gatti business was finished" but I don't think he realized that he was in the same place as Gatti. I asked him: "When did they take you?" The "gang" told me to restrict myself to listening. LeOn answered me all the same: "They took me from La Rioja Street, about four or five days ago." (Duarte was abducted on 13 July 1976). "For four days I haven't eaten anything but a slice of bread and a glass of water." He had clearly been brutally tortured. Memories of all this come to me continually,24 hours a day. If I had only been able to help... It seemed I was still to be the intermediary. I asked them again what had happened to Gatti. They told me to be quiet and listen to LeEn Duarte. He said: "Look, Ferro" (we called each other by our nicknames Perro and Loco: we had been friends for 24 years) "the fact is that ii you accept to be intermediarythese people are suggesting that we can obtain a large sum of money. These people want money, they want dollars, many dollars. I don't kneu how we can do this but ycu must take the proposal to the comrades. But it's up to you if you want to continue being the intermediaryor not." What alternativedid I have? The Argentinian jumped up and said that I had to accept. One of them said angrily that Duarte should be given food and shoes. "I am going for a pair of shces; thcre are 40 pairs of shoes below." It was clear that not only Gatti was or had been there, and Duarte, but the 26 others who had fallen into their hands. I don't know if it was just an expression but the fact of there being 40 pairs of shoes uss an indication that there were many more people there. I said goodbye to Duarte, afraid that they would continue torturing him. Before leaving, the gang said to my question about Gatti: "No, no Don Ferro, don't ask any more." They dropped me off at Liniers and I vent to my home in MorSn. It uas about 1.00 am or later. My family uere worried and we then began to discuss getting help for asylum through the United Nations High Commission for Refugees or something similar. A few days later, a comrade and was running out: "Stay calm msmber of ROE called me and warned me that tilts but go away."* Washin ton Perez: Sweden Au ust 1976

* After the sudden end of negotiationswith the "gang", Washington Perez remained only another 15 days in Argentina under the protection of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and finally found asylum in Sweden.

-614. Maria Elba Rama Molla Aged 22 and a student. She was a refugee in Argentina under UNHCR protection. A habeas cor us writ was filed on her behalf after her abduction on 13/14 July 1976. According to the Uruguayan authorities,she was arrested in Uruguay on 23 October 1976. 5. Ana Ines uadros Herrera de Strauch Aged 31 and the daughter of a former Uruguayan ambassador to Great Britain and West Germany. She had legal residence in Argentina since 1974. She was abducted in Buenos Aires on 13 July 1976. Her parents submitteda writ of habeas corpus along with affidavits of witnesses who said she was abducted from her home by a group of armed men. The Uruguayan armed forces claim that: " among those arrested on 23 October 1976 is Ana Ines Quadros de Strauch, who, according to certain sources, had been kidnapped in Argentina by an ultra-rightor parapolicegroup. The purpose of this is to bring the Argentine and Uruguayan governments into disrepute." 6. Ana Marla Salvo Sanchez de Es i a Aged 22 and a nurse. She had legal residence in Argentina since 1974 and worked at the Pirovana hospital in Buenos Aires. Abducted when she arrived at her home (address:Humberto 1, 1308) on 14 July 1976. There are witnesses. She was a refugee under UNHCR protection. A habeas cor us writ was filed after her abduction. No date of arrest is given by the Uruguayan armed forces.

APPENDIX 4 CASES OF REFOULEMENTOF URUGUAYAN REFUGEES In press communiqug No 21 dated 28 October 1976, which was widely reproduced by the Uruguayan and Argentine press, the Uruguayan Joint Armed Forces announced the detention in Uruguay of 62 persons accused of subversive activities. On 29 October 1976, the same source provided extensive informationabout the alleged activities of the group. Only 17 of the 62 persons were named. There is evidence that 14 of the named persons were among about 70 Uruguayan refugees abducted in Argentina this year. There are eyewitnessesto many of the abductions. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had placed habeas cor us writs on behalf of 7 of the 14 after their abductions were reported by relatives and witnesses in July 1976. Most of the 14 were abducted on 13/14 July 1976, when 26 Uruguayan refugees were kidnapped, including 11 women and 2 children. The 14 persons who have appeared in detention in Uruguay are: 1. Sara Rita Mendez Lam orio Aged 32 and a teacher, she had carried out trade union activities in Uruguay as student and teacher. Abducted on 13 July 1976 from her home in Buenos Aires (address:Juana Azurduy 3163) together with her 21-days-old son Situ% Antonio Riquelo. The baby has disappeared. According to the Uruguayan armed forces, Senora Mendez Lamporio was arrested in Uruguay on 23 October 1976. 2. Asilu Sonia Maseiro Perez

7. Alicia Ra uel Cadenas Ravela (or Ravels) Aged 26 and abducted on 13 July 1976 together with (6). Same witnesses. She was also a refugee under UNHCR protection and a writ of habeas cor us was placed on her behalf. No date of detention was given by the Uruguayan authorities. 8. Edelweiss (or Elena) Zahn Freire de Andrgs

Aged 47, she was a nurse and former trade union leader at a Montevideo hospital. Abducted together with (1) on 13 July 1976. There are witnesses to both abductions. According to the Uruguayan authorities,she was arrested in Uruguay on 23 October 1976. 3. Ser io Ruben Lo ez Burgos

Aged 24, a textile worker and former trade union leader in Uruguay. Former official of the Textile Workers' Convention of Uruguay. Given the precarious situation of refugees in Argentina, he had requested and been granted a visa for Sweden. Abducted in Buenos Aires on 13 July 1976. There are witnesses. According to the Uruguayan authorities,he was arrested in Uruguay on 23 October 1976.

Aged 34, married and a psychologist. Abducted from her home in Deheza Street, Buenos Aires on 13 July 1976. There are witnesses. No date of detention was given by the Uruguayan authorities. 9. Ariel Ro elio Soto Loureiro Aged 23, a refugee living in Argentina under UNHCR protection. A habeas cor us writ was filed on his behalf after his abduction around 14 July

62-

/976. No date of detention in Uruguay was given. APPENDIX 5 Victor Hu o Lubian Pelaez Aged 24 and reportedlyof Argentine nationality (probablyadopted nationality). Married with two children. He ran a cigarette shop at his home, where he was abducted around 14 July 1976. His wife was arrested immediatelyafter attempting to denounce the abduction at a police station. Maria Petrides de Lubian Aged 22 and wife of the above. Held immediatelyafter she attempted to file a denunciationabout her husband's kidnaFping at a police station. No date of arrest given. Maria Monica Solino Platero Aged 21 and the daughter of a Uruguayan active in Roman Catholic lay organizations. Abducted at her home in Buenos Aires (address:Sargento Cabral 881) on 7 July 1976. Her parents filed a habeas cor us writ along with affidavits of witnesses to the abduction. No date of arrest is given by the Uruguayan authorities. Cecilia Irene Ga oso Jaure ui Aged 20 and abducted with (12) at the same address with the same witnesses to the abduction. No date of arrest is given by the Uruguayan authorities. Carlos (or GastOn) Zina Fi eredo Aged 21, abducted in Buenos Aires at a hotel where he lived with his mother on 22 July 1976. No date of arrest is mentioned by the Uruguayan authorities. REPRESENTATIVECASE HISTORIES

Parliamentarians Dr Hi 6lito Solari Yri o en and De ut Mario Abel Ama a were both identifiedwith the more progressive These two parliamentarians or "alfonsinista"line of the Radical Party. On 18 August 1976, Dr Solari Yrigoyen was abducted from his home in Trelew in the southern province of Chubut by persons unknown. On about the same date, Senor Mario Amaya was abducted, apparently by the same group. After a national outcry the two politicianswere mysteriouslyreleased on 31 August by what official sources described as right-wing extremists,but they were immediatelyplaced at the disposal of the Executive Power and detained in the maximum security prison by their abductors. One of the reasons of Rawson. Both had been.maltreated given for their official detention was that they were to be questioned about the details of their abductions. Amaya deterioratedand In early September 1976, the condition of Sellor he was transferredto the prison hospital of Villa Devoto in Buenos Aires. Here he was visited by his mother and one of the Radical Party leaders who Amaya had told them that he had been kept in Rawson testified that Seri-or overnight in his cell in midwinter almost naked and without any blankets. He was known to suffer from asthma and have a weak heart. On 19 October, Senor Amaya died from heart failure. There is no doubt that the treatmenthe received whilst in official custody precipitatedhis death. Dr Solari Yrigoyen is still detained without any charges in Rawson and his health too is believed to have been impaired as a result of the harsh prison conditions. Dr Solari Yrigoyen is well-known as an outspoken advocate of human rights.

La

ers

There has been a consistent wave of assaults against members of the 30,000 strong legal profession in Argentina over the past three years. In March 1975, the InternationalCommission of Jurists reported that "those lawyers who act as defence counsel for political detainees have been victims of extensiveviolence, ranging from threats of murder to actual physical elimination. Several have had their offices damaged by explosionsand broken into by police authorities. Some are aetained on order of the Executive without any regular trial or the laying of formal charges. Others have had to leave the country n* or go into hiding

* The Situation of Defence La

ers in Ar entina: March 1975.

65

-64In November 1976, the delegation found that the position of lawyers had, if anything, worsened. The Argentine Federation of Bar Associations informed Amnesty Internationalthat in November there were between 30 and 40 lawyers detained at the disposal of the Executive Power; they refused to disclose any informationregarding these people, but they did state that the Minister of the Interior had promised tO review, before January 1977, all cases of lawyers detained for political reasons. Other measures to discourage lawyers from taking up the defence of political prisoners have continued. During the mission, the Amnesty International delegates learnt about the abduction of seven practising lawyers, all respected and known for their readiness to defend political detainees. Mario Gerardo Yacub Academics Mario Gerardo Yacub had represented several detained Chilean refugees. He was abducted from his office by the police and military in early November and has not been heard of since. He taught Law at the University of Buenos Aires. His wife, who was interviewedby the delegates at their hotel on 12 November, was arrested by the police on leaving with her brother-in-lawand was held overnight. Daniel Victor Antokoletz and Liliana Marla Andres They were abducted from their home on 10 November 1976 at 8.00 am by men who claimed to be from the CoordinaciOnFederal. They are both lawyers. At this time, there is no informationabout their place of detention. Baldomero Juan Valera Baldomero Juan Valera, a 58-year-olddefence lawyer, was kidnapped outside his office in early November in Avellaneda, a suburb of Buenos Aires, and has since disappeared. He defended political prisoners and is a member of the Communist Party. There have been several previous attempts on his life. Victor Jacobo Noe On 25 October 1976, Victor Jacobo Noe, a 28-year-oldlawyer and highschool teacher, was abducted in Buenos Aires at 11.30 am outside the school where he worked. There were four witnesses who stated that four heavily armed men dressed in plainclotheswere responsible for the abduction. They identifiedthemselvesas belonging to a group called the National Socialists or Nazis. Victor Jacobo Noe is Jewish; three days prior to his abduction he received several phone calls and a letter threateninghim personally and the whole Jewish community in general. At the moment of his abduction, Senor Niie shouted out his name; he is a well-known leader of the Argentine Jewish Youth. In July 1976, a military investigationtook place in the University of the South (Bahia Blanca) which resulted in the discovery of an alleged plan of "ideologicaland socio-culturalinfiltration". Seventeen university professorswere arrested and the army issued a further list of 31 other "fugitives"who were also wanted, including some people who were already living abroad. The 17 academics, mainly from the Economics Faculty, have been detained in a prison in Bahia Blanca for over 6 months. They will be tried in military courts on charges of subversive instruction. In the present political climate, there are few grounds for optimism about the outcome of the trials. The names of those detained are as follows: Mario Carlos Aggio Miguel Angel Arias Alberto Constante Barbeito Carlos Barrera Victor Benano Hector Pistonessi Castelli Stella Maris Ramirez de Custodio Luis Alberto Rodriguez Rafael Luis Laplaza Anahi Silvia Rodriguez de Tapatta Hugo Reinaldo Sartison Victor Manuel Schillizzi Dolio Heralio Sfascia Heber Nazareno Tapatta Mario Arnaldo Usobiaga Eduardo Alfredo Villamil Hector Ciafardini There is still no informationas to his whereabouts. Although there are no indicationsthat Jews have been singled out officially for repression,many former political prisoners have reported that prisoners of Jewish origin are victimized by guards. From July 1975 onwards there has been a marked increase in anti-Semiticattacks; antiSemitism is clearly an underlying element in many right-wing abductions. Schtein art de Teste Jor e Teste and Milt-Lica A married couple, they were allegedly arrested by the army in mid-_ November in Buenos Aires. They were legal advisers to trade unions; Senor Teste has defended political prisoners.

On 4 August 1976) a press conference was given in Bahia Blanca to announce the discovery of academic subversionat the university. General Vilas, the then military commander of the region, referred earlier to a speech made by the commander of the armed forces and reaffirmed that "until the present time only the tip of the iceberg has been touched in our war against subversion". He went on to explain: "It is necessary to destroy the sources which feed, form and indoctrinatethe subversivedelinquent, and this source is in the universitiesand the secondary schools themselves." General Vilas maintained that the most dangerous influencewas exerted by those academics who had received educational training abroad and then returned to poison the minds of Argentine youth with the ideas they had learnt. The events which occurred in July 1976 in Bahia Blanca are not an

-67-66Alais, who was also present isolated incident; according to Subcommissioner at the August press conference: "We have investigatedthe University of the South, but we still have many more areas which we have to investigate." Ps chiatrists Claudio Santia o Bermann Claudio Bermann, a psychiatristwith a small practise in COrdoba, was arrested in April 1976. A letter written by a relative describes the manner in which he was detained: "He was arrested on 27 April 1976, after midnight by an army patrol who searched his house. He is a well-known psychiatrist, devoted to his private practice and the direction of a small family clinic for psychiatric cases in Cordoba. He is 50 years old and has six children, whose ages range from 3 to 26 years old. Before raiding his house, his private office was carefully searched by persons unknown who entered through a window. "After he was taken from his home, he was apparently held in an old army prison in Cordoba (Cam o de la Rivera which has been functioningagain and where many victims of "unofficial"kidnappings are said to have been held. There he was chained to a bench and hooded. After five days he was taken to the Penitentiary,a prison for those already serving trial sentences and used for political prisoners. When he was being taken into the prison he was seen by one of his patients. The military authoritiesdeclined to inform his family of his whereabouts and they found out where he was through an anonymous phone call. It was later on that the authoritiesadmitted he was in the Penitentiaryand allowed a notary to see him and sign a power of attorney for his wife. "He is completely incommunicado;the habeas corpus writs presented on his behalf have not been answered and no charges have been presented against him. He has not been able to commuicatewith his family even by writing; they are only allowed to bring him clothes, and, of course, have not been allowed him. We know of at least one occasion on which he was taken out prison to be questioned and we do not know which methods were used." Trade Unionists Rene Salamanca Rene Salamanca, Secretary General of the Sindicato de Mecanicos (Mechanics' was abducted from his home on 28 March 1976, four days Union) in Ciirdoba, after the military coup. He is one of many trade unionists who have been the victims of abduction and arbitrary arrest during the past year, particularly in the Cordoba area where the trade union movement has traditionallybeen very strong. It is believed that Rene Salamanca is being held illegallyby the armed forces in one of the unofficial detention camps, Campo de la Rivera, which is under the jurisdictionof the 3rd Army Corps in Cordoba. However, his arrest has never been officially acknowledgedby the authorities. The long period of secret detention to which Rene Salamanca has been subjected has given rise to grave fears about his physical well-being. At 8.00 am on 14 November 1976, Rene Salamanca'swife, Olga Cortes de Salamanca, set out from her home to see the mission delegates at their hotel, probably to request an interventionon behalf of her husband. She had decided to approach the delegates, despite the fact that they had warned her that it might be dangerous for her to do so. Olga Cortes de Salamanca never arrived at the delegates' hotel and her children reported later that she had not returned home. It later transpired that she had been picked up by plainclothessecurity agents and held prisoner for two days before being released. The reason for her arrest is believed to be retaliation for her attempts to establish the whereabouts of her husband. The Avellaneda Famil On 15 April 1976, uniformed and plainclothedmen machine-gunnedthe door of the Avellaneda family 's home at 2.00 am. The men looked for Serior Floreal Avellaneda, a former trade union leader in the TENSA factory. Not finding him, they ransacked the house, stole money and other belongings, brutally beat his wife Iris de Avellaneda and his son Floreal Avellaneda, aged 15. Later the mother and son were taken to the police station of Villa Martelli and tortured. Senora Avellaneda was tied to a bed where, after being soaked with ice-cold water for half an hour, her trousers were pulled off and she was given electric shock treatment all over her body. Her son underwent similar treatment_andshe could hear him screaming. They were briefly reunited, then Senora Avellaneda was taken hooded to a place she believed was a the Brigada Gllemes, police barracks. Here she was repeatedly questioned about her husband's whereabouts. She was given electric shock treatment and beaten with sticks and gun butts on her head, neck and face. She was carried out to open country where a simulated executionwas staged. The torture continued for some days, then the treatment improved and finally she was transferred to the Olmos prison and officially detained, 15 days after her arrest.

68-

69-

filed for her son without any result. On Writs of habeas cor us were persreported that several corpses had been found 16 August 1976, the newspa ver Plate. A tattoo ( a heart with the on the Uruguayan shores of the Ri dies fitted the descriptionof Floreal letters "F. A.") on one of the bo Avellaneda. Av e acknowledgedthat Sellora ellaneda was stry of Defenc The Mini utive Power, but for reasons of security detained at the disposal of the Exec out the personnel responsible for the arrest could not give any informationab of her and her son. Jor e di Pascuale e PharmaceuticalWorkers' Union, about Jorge di Pascuale, a leader of th y associated with the left-wing Peronist movement 42-years-oldand closel ped on his way home on 30 December 1976 in "Peronismode Base", was kidnap ppeared. He was opposed to the corrupt Buenos Aires. Since then, he has disa odox Peronist trade union movement of the "62 leadershipof the orth ose friend of a Peronist trade unionist, Organizations";he was also a cl o died shortly after the coup when, trying to Mayor Bernardo Alberte, wh from a sixth-floorwindow. Jorge di Pascuale has escape arrest, he fell several children. Journalists Enri ue Walker , two police vans parked outside a Buenos Aires On Saturday 17 July 1976 the light because they were looking cinema and asked the management to turn on this was done, plainclothesmen burst into the for someone. When tried to escape but was arrested at gunpoint. He auditorium. Enrique Walker stwho had worked for the publicationsGente and was an Argentine journali date, there has been no news of his whereabouts. Nuevo Hombre. Since that Eduardo Molina Vedia

engaged in any political activity in Argentina. le to trace his whereabouts,but after a Initially,relatives were unab ed to be in the CoordinaciOnFederal, the period of 12 days he was report enos Aires, where prisoners are held for police headquarters in Bu en frequently cited as a torture centre. interrogationpurposes. It has be Senor Molina y Vedia was subjected to torture. Here ogationperiod, he was transferredto Villa Devoto After the interr Since then, he has been moved to La Plata prison. prison in Buenos Aires. of ntion at tie cUlsrosel the Executive g held in preventive dgte he is bein r and has been neither charged ror tried. Powe

?]

39 years old. He began his career as a Eduardo Lucio Molina y Vedia is s 18, working for a provincial newspaper called journalist when he wa sistencia. Since that time he has worked for El Territorio in the town of Re ine periodicals,including Siete Dias and the several well-known Argent At,the time of his arrest, he was working political review Primera Plana. for the national newspaper La Opinion. p of unidentifiedarmed men, together with the He was abducted by a grou his Chilean wife Gloria Rojas de Ipola, social scientistEmilio de Ipola and os Aires on 6 April 1976. The reason for when he visited their home in Buen Molina y Vedia is not known to have been his abduction is not clear; Senor

71OTHER DETAILS Electricalengineer employedat National Atomic Energy Commission Grandmother of URTEAGA Jose Abductedwith SCOPISE Norma Mary Aged 21 Aged 15; abducted with mother

DATE OF ABDUCTION APPENDIX 6 LIST OF DISAPPEARANCES CE THE COUP SIN The followinglist is incomplete; includesonly those cases reported it to Amnesty International ce 24 March 1976 and which we have been able to sin corroboratefrom other sources. This list omits all cases of personswho subsequently e been released,found dead or acknowledged be held in hav to officialcustody.It is correctat the time of going to press. The disappearance es documentedby Amnesty International e occurred cas hav principallyin three metropolitan areas: Buenos Aires, Cordoba and, to a lesser extent,Mendoza. But the phenomenonof disappearances not just confined is to these areas and Amnesty International has receivedunspecifiedreportsof widespreaddisappearances m many other regions of Argentina,notably fro Tucuman. NAME ABRIATA Hernan ACHO Graciela A A Carlos Juan DATE OF ABDUCTION 29 October 1976 5 August 1976 13 June 1976 14 August 1976 13 June 1976 28 March 1976 Late September1976 28 July 1976 7 May 1976 1 October 1976 Uruguayan Trade-unionist Aged 19; employee Teacher Physicistemployed at NationalAtomic Energy Commission BARTUCCIFrancisco BATISTA Susana BELLAGAMBAHugo Francisco BENITEZAnibal Carlos BENVENUTTOJorge Omar BE 0 Amado 29 July 1976 24 September1976 19 April 1976 12 September1976 23 July 1976 17 July 1976 28 May 1976 30 April 1976 20 August 1976 31 August 1976 22 October 1976 OTHER DETAILS BARRERA ORO Jaime Architect BARRERA Juan Carlos Employee BARRIONUEVO Edy Paraguayan BARROS Oscar Osvaldo ALMADA VILLALBACarlos Alberto ALVADE Carlos Juan ALVAREZ Ella ALVAREZ Pedro ALVAREZ Stela Maris ALVAREZ de BARROS Lucina ALVAREZ ROJAS Federico 7 May 1976 3 August 1976 7 April 1976 ARNONE de URTEAGA Esperanza ASTELARA SantiagoPedro AVALOS Nelida Graciela AVELLANEDAFloreal Edgardo BABUYA Alberto Horacio BALBUENASenora 4 January 1977 23 November 1976 10 September1976 15 May 1976 20 April 1976 ARDITO Roberto and wife and two children 10 October 1976

Abductedwith husband who was subsequently released

Post office employee

Employeeat OCA Intercargo Italian Teacher Psychoanalyst Construction worker

Bank employee;graduate in PoliticalSciences

BERNAL Alberto BIANCO Alicia Hilda

0 Gloria AMICO Salvador ANDREOTTIJuan Carlos ANGELO Alfredo Gustavo d' APAZA Arturo

19-21 July 1976 22 May 1976 25 October 1976 26 March 1976 12 May 1976 Aged 27; Italian Aged 23; businessman Aged 22; student Metallurgical worker BINSTOCKGuillermoDaniel BJELIS Sergio Jorge Pablo BLAHOURCADEErnesto Employee Aged 33 Aged 45

-73-72NAME BLANCO Roberto DATE OF ABDUCTION May/June 1976 Wife of CARRERAMarcelo OTHER DETAILS NAME CAREAGAAna Maria CAREAGA ClaudiaMabel CARMEN DITO FINO Tomas del Doctor CARRANZACarlos Alberto CARRENO EnriqueOscar Radio actor and director;General Secretaryof Argentine Associationof Actors of Mendoza Aged 22; studentof PoliticalSciences DATE OF ABDUCTION 14 September1976 14 September1976 28 November 1976 18 August 1976 18 May 1976 OTHER DETAILS Paraguayan Sister of above wo Electricity rkers' trade union leader Aged 29; teacher Trade union leader of public workers of COrdoba Aged 22; petroleum worker

BONALDI de CARRERA Adriana Irene 1 December 1976 BOUVIER Edmundo BRANDT Arturo BRAVO Graciela BRAVO Juan HumbertoRuben 12 May 1976 March 1976 12 October 1976 21 October 1976

CARRERA Marcelo Guillermo CERREA Ines CERRUTI FernandoRuben CERRUTI Victorio

24 November 1976 28 May 1976 10 May 1976

BRAWERMANAlfredo Oscar BRIZUELANicolas Hector BRONZEL Jose Daniel BUENANUEVABlanca Cristina BUSTAMANTEJuan Carlos CABEZAS GustavoAlejandro CABRERA Ary

18 August 1976

27 July 1976 8 September1976 March 1976 10 May 1976 5 April 1976

Architect Hospital employee Student Student Bank employee; Uruguayan.His body is believed to have been washed up on shores of River Plate in late April Student Fiat mechanic; aged 30

CHABROL Juan C; CHABROL Oscar D. CHABROL Pablo Jose CHARPARINJuan Carlos CHERSANAZJuan Carlos CHIDICHIMORicardo Dario CHOQUE COSME Benito COLLADO Jorge Daniel COMBA SIBEIRALiliana CONCEPCIONNoemi

18 October 1976 18 October 1976 20 October 1976 May/June 1976 13 May 1976 20 November 1976 14 September1976

Street vendor Street vendor

wo Metallurgist; rked for Air Force Hospital employee

CAFARO Daniel CALEFFA Victor CAMPOS Silvia Marla CANDELARIAMIGNONE Monica Maria CANELLA Lucia Elena CARABELLIGabriela and 3-year-olddaughter CARBONELde PEREZ WEISS Beatriz Carolina

20 June 1976 15 April 1976 14 May 1976 14 May 1976 14 September1976 April 1976

26 April 1976 22 September1976 5 May 1976 May/June 1976

Aged 23

Remedial teacher Aged 51 Universitylecturer

CONTI Haroldo CORREA Maria Ines COYTE de CNZA Marcela

Writer

18 August 1976 27 October 1976 13 May 1976 Aged 22 Aged 21; medical student

CRUCES Celso Pedro 14 May 1976 Aged 23; social worker CUPAIOLIGuillermoHernan

-74NAME DEGET Raul Arturo DELFINO Liliana DATE OF ABDUCTION 22 May 1976 19 July 1976 OTHER DETAILS Supervisorat ASTARSEA FERNANDEZGustavo Javier Psychologist; believed to be held in Campo de Mayo FERNANDEZCarlos Alberto FERNANDEZJesus Alberto DEMARCHIHector Ernesto DIAZ FranciscoGenaro DORIGO Pablo Hermes DORRONSORODardo Sebastian DRUETTA Pedro Hector DUARTE Leon DUBSOVSKYPablo EISENSCHLAS Enrique ENRIQUEZESPINOSAEdgardo ERLICH Margarita ESCAMEZAlfredo ESCAMEZ FranciscoAlberto GALLARDOAna Maria ESCUDEROPICCALUGACristina ESCUDEROPICCALUGAFernando 28 September1976 28 September1976 Antique dealer GALLARDOJuan Carlos Unemployed;was receivingneurological treatmentat time of abduction Trade-unionist; SecretaryGeneral of Bank Associates'Union GALVAN Enrique Jesus GARCIA Antonio GARCIA Claudia Iruretagoyena GARCIA Juan Carlos GARCIA Luis Daniel Employeeat SAMPI factory GARCIA Omar 7 July 1976 2 July 1976 10 April 1976 6 April 1976 27 October 1976 5 July 1976 FERNANDEZMEIJIDE Pablo 28 April 1976 20 August 1976 26 June 1976 July 1976 Uruguayan;trade unionist Student Employeeat ContinentalSA Chilean; engineer; leader of MIR Student FUENTES Hilda Student at University of Mendoza GAGLIANO Juan Carlos Employee at Hidrofila factory Televisionaccountant Blacksmithand writer; aged 63 FERREIRALuis FIGUEREDOGaston Zina FLORES Jose Francisco FOSSATTILuis FOTE FortunatoLeandro FRIGOLI AlejandroJose FRIGOLI Carlos Alberto FERREIRA Juan Esteban NAME FARINA Beatriz

-75DATE OF ABDUCTION 14 June 1976 27 August 1976 27 August 1976 28 August 1976 22 October 1976 April 1976 OTHER DETAILS Employeeat SAMPI factory Aged 26 Aged 26 Aged 35; actor Student Trade unionistand worker at Terrabusi plant Uruguayan;trade unionist Aged 21; Uruguayan Aged 24; studentof Architecture Journalist Aged 38; trade unionist

28 March 1976 14 July 1976 9 September1976 26 November 1976 1 December 1976 2 September1976 2 September1976 25 August 1976 7 June 1976 8 July 1976 May 1976 18 November 1976

Trade unionist Aged 35; infant teacher Worker Aged 15; student Physicist Aged 25; metallurgist

ESQUERRAJose F.

19 April 1976

24 August 1976 9 July 1976 12 August 1976 27 March 1976 Aged 38 Aged 20 Agricultural worker

ESPINDOLAFernandoRafael FALCON Carlos Agustin

14 June 1976 26 March 1976

-76NAME GARCIA Rudyar Eduardo DATE OF ABDUCTION 9 July 1976 -77OTHER DETAILS NAME Aged 15; student in technicalschool. Abducted with father GARCIA Juan Carlos Uruguayan;journalist and trade unionist. Founder of CNT Lawyer GUTMAN Alberto Marcos ISLAS de ZAFFARONIMarla Emilia DATE OF ABDUCTION 28 September1976 27 September1976 Uruguayan;wife of ZAFFARONICASTILLA Jorge OTHER DETAILS

GATTI Gerardo

10 June 1976

ILLA SantiagoJose JAKOWZYKCarlos JARACH Franca KHUN Maria Teresa

May/June 1976

GATTO Carlos Oscar Dr GELMAN Marcelo Ariel and wife GHIOINO Ricardo GIL Ricardo GIMENEZ Juan Carlos GLEYZER Raimundo GOICOECHEADaniel Horacio GOLDSTEINMonica Liliana GOMEZ Maria Elena GONZALEZEusebio GONZALEZAlfredo GONZALEZCARDODO Jorge GONZALEZPedro Antonio GRABLE Javier GRANDE Sara Elba GRANDI Nicolas and wife GRANIC Hector GUERREROAngelicaMarta GULLO Angela Maria Aieta de GUTIERREZAna Maria

29 April 1976 24 August 1976 May 1976 28 March 1976 May/June 1976 27 May 1976 6 June 1976 6 October 1976 1 June 1976 22 September1976 April 1976 15 June 1976 5 July 1976 20 May 1976 28 July 1976 July 1976 14 May 1976 3 June 1976 5 August 1976 7 May 1976

25 June 1976 31 May 1976 28 July 1976 11 November 1976 15 December 1976 12 August 1976 June 1976

Aged 18; student Bank employee Aged 38

Uruguayan;university professorof Economics

KITZLERMabel KNOBEL Carlos Abel KOELLIKERFRERS Alfredo Arturo

Journalist Opthalmologist Studentof Educational Sciencesat University of Cordoba Psychiatrist Aged 24 Two-year-oldson of newspapereditor

Film-maker;aged 34

KOHAN Ricardo KONIG Emma Raquel

Universitylecturer Aged 36; fashionmodel KORIN EduardoMario KORSUNSKYEduardo Sergio Member of Christian Revolutionary Party Uruguayan Aged 18; student Student;Polish refugee LEIKIS de ALVAREZ ROJAS Hilda 1 October 1976 KRAISELBURG David LABBATE Pedro Hugo LANZILLOTTO MENNA Ana Maria de 20 December 1976 4 August 1976 2 September1976 13 July 1976 19 July 1976

Student;believed to be held in Campo de Mayo Computerprogrammer; wife of ALVAREZ ROJAS Federico Aged 23; employeeof DODERO company Aged 18; teacher

LEVITAN ClaudioAugusto LIBEDINKYSusana Beatriz LIBERTORIOSalvadorF: Wife of PRIETO Antonio LILLE Maria Cristina LOPEZ MARTIN Angela

27 October 1976 22 May 1976 7 April 1976 4 June 1976 25 September1976

Spanish;teacher

-78DATE OF ABDUCTION LOPEZ Braulio LOPEZ EduardoNestor LOPEZ Mauricio 15 December 1976 12 October 1976 Late December 1976 OTHER DETAILS Uruguayan;singer Bank employee Universityprofessor; ex-official World of ChristianStudent Federationand worked for WCC in Geneva Electricalengineer Aged 23; Peruvian Technician Leader of shipbuilders' trade union Aged 26; veterinary surgeon Lawyer MERCURI Maria Leonor MINGORACEAlicia Marina MINGORACEJorge de MISETICHAntonio 16 July 1976 Teacher Member of Christian Revolutionary Party 10 September1976 13 August 1976 21 July 1976 Aged 22; teacher Teacher Worker; abductedwith husband NICOTERA RicardoAlfredo MOAVRO Horacio Roberto MOLINA Antonio Juan MOLINA Raul MERAJVER Eduardo Ezequiel MERBILHASEduardo Raul MENNA Domingo NAME MARTINEZ GARCIA Angela MARTINEZDaniel MARTUL Frederico MASERA Omar MENDEZ Hugo

-79DATE OF ABDUCTION 10 September1976 2 July 1976 26 June 1976 OTHER DETAILS Nurse Worker

15 June 1976 19 July 1976

LORENZO RobertoAdolfo LORUSSOLE Marla Esther

14 August 1976 14 May 1976 24 July 1976 Late September1976 15 May 1976 19 April 1976 25 May 1976

Uruguayantextile worker;member of CNT Medical student; believed to be held in Campo de Mayo Aged 26; worker Metallurgical worker; believed to be held in Campo de Mayo

LOZANO Jaime Emilio LUCA Ricardo de LUGONES Cesar Amadeo LUNA Hugo Rene LUNA Sonia Rosa LUQUE BRACHI Emilio Alberto MAGNET FERRERO de TAMBURINI Maria Cecilia MALDONADOPETINARIMiguel Angel MANSILLA Miguel Angel MARCHETTIAmerico Jorge MARCHINI de NICOTERAAlicia Isabel

13 May 1976 14 September1976

May/June 1976 23 July 1976 23 July 1976 19 April 1976 Aged 16; student Aged 19; student Physicistemployedat NationalAtanic Energy Commission Lawyer

29 March 1976

27 April 1976

Presidentof Architectural Students' Associationin Cordoba Aged 37

MORAL Jorge Nestor MOUJAN Hugo Alfredo MOYANO Daniel Jorge

18 August 1976 May/June 1976 12 May 1976

MARI Leonardo MARIN Juan Carlos MARINIS Lidia Beatrizde MARGUETICHMarcelo MAROTTA Arturo G. 7 July 1976 May/June 1976 19 August 1976 26 April 1976 Aged 25 Aged 22; student Student

MOYANO SalvadorAlberto MUJICA Susana Edith MULLER Hector 9 June 1976 28 May 1976 Aged 65; chemicalworker. His body believed to have been found floating in River Parana

81-OTHER DETAILS Abductedwith husband BRONZEL Jose Daniel Sanitoriumemployee; abductedwith husband Worker Uruguayan Aged 25; Geology student Student Employeeat Liquidadora Carbonic

80-OTHER DETAILS PEDRINI Susana Elena Student Studentof Law and Social Sciences Studentof Law at Universityof Buenos Aires PENA Irene Nelida PENDER Luis Roberto PEREZ LUTZ Elizabeth PEREZ WEISS Horacio Sister-in-law of SANTUCHOCarlos Hiber Graphicsworker Aged 20 Lawyer/lecturer. Believedto be attack on Jewish community Aged 21 Aged 24 PIPINO Bruno Tomas PODOLSKYCecilia PONCE de LEON Gustavo Adolfo PRADANOSJuan Carlos PRIETO Antonio PUCCIO Jorge Eduardo Aged 25; student QUINTEIROSMonica RAMOS de GONZALEZDiana Cristina Aged 21 Aged23; worker Aged 19; Paraguayan; student Member of Christian Revolutionary Party Trade unionist; unsuccesfulparliamentary candidatein 1973 Aged 19; student Worker RAVIONANIPablo RAVINOVICHde SANDOVALAlicia Ines REISMAN Alberto Luis REQUENA Eduardo RESTA Fabian RESTA Marina Scza de RIQUELO Simon Antonio 23 July 1976 23 July 1976 15 April 1976 15 April 1976 13 July 1976 Aged 13; student Aged 30; shop assistant Uruguayan;aged 6 weeks at time of abduction 21 June 1976 27 July 1976 5 August 1976 22 April 1976 7 May 1976 2 November 1976 14 May 1976 22 September1976 8 August 1976 Aged 30; Economics graduate Teacher Computerprogrammer/ systems analyst Professor PEREZ de AGUIRRE Raul PINTO Gabriel Daniel 14 September1976 10 May 1976 15 June 1976 14 May 1976 7 July 1976 4 June 1976 DATE OF ABDUCTION 27 July 1976

NAME MUNIZ Eduardo MUNOZ Antonio Hernan MUNOZ Julio Anibal

DATE OF ABDUCTION 22 October 1976 28 September1976 28 September1976

NACHMAN Gregorio NAVAJA Cristina Silvia NICOTERARicardo Alfredo NIETO Adriana Silvia NOE Victor Jacobo

19 June 1976 14 July 1976 21 July 1976 15 August 1976 27 October 1976

OJEA QUINTANAEstebanMaria OJEDA Aldo Oscar OLIVERI Gloria Marta ORFANO PantaleonDaniel ORTEMBERGJose Eduardo OVIEDO Mario Domingo PALAZZORicardo Luis PARDO Alicia Cecilia Jorge Rodolfo PARRA Manuel PASCUALEJorge di

3 April 1976 30 June 1976 6 May 1976 30 July 1976 May/June 1976 24 June 1976 16 September1976 29 May 1976 5 April 1976 April 1976 30 December 1976

PASIK Gustavo Jose PEDEMONTEde RUIZ VARGAS Josefina

22 May 1976 10 August 1976

-82NAME RIQUELO Stella Maria RISAU Juan Carlos RODRIGUEZRODRIGUEZJulio Cesar ROMAN NicolasMiguel Angel ROSELL Angel Walter RUBINO Raquel del Carmen RUFFA RicardoArmando RYAN Santiago SABINO Maria del Carmen SADY Americo DATE OF ABDUCTION 13 July 1976 July 1976 15 June 1976 7 May 1976 31 May 1976 23 June 1976 2 April 1976 7 April 1976 29 August 1976 10 May 1976 OTHER DETAILSNAME Mother of RIQUELO Simon AntonioSCHAEGR Psychiatrist Uruguayan;employee of Stein-YteichberCo g Aged 37; worker at Tensa factory Aged 48 ;worker SCHULTZMirabellaRaquel Aged 22; studentof ArchitectureSEGHEZZO Aged 23; studentSEMBER Aged 54; graphicsSENAR worker Sociologistand Grocery store owner; epileptic- neededSILVA injections Wife of above SINIGAGLIA Roberto SAID BAZZE Hugo SALAMANCARene 20 October 1976 Aged 22 SOBEL Hector Natalio Trade-unionist; believedto be held in unofficial detentioncentre inSOLIS COrdoba Aged 27 SOTO Damian SAN JOSE Daniel Enrique SANTAMARIAGracielaBlanca SAN VICENTE Jorge SANTUCHOManuela Hiber SARAVIAMaria Zaida SARMIENTOEstela del Rosario SCHAEGR FredericoSimon 3 June 1976 14 May 1976 SOUTO Manuel Ramon 29 April 1976 SPAGNOLIMarta Alicia de Vera 14 July 1976 12 October 1976 10 September1976 10 September1976 Aged 35; teacher Aged 47 STEIMBERGLuis Pablo SUAREZ VirginiaAdele SZAPIROEdmundo SZAPIRO Susan Teacher SOTO Edilberto SOBRADO Jorge de SOSA Miguel Angel SANCHEZMaria Matilde Eduardo Oscar GregorioMarcelo Alberto SERSON Gerardo sister Alberto da SCHILLERJos; Francisco SCHULTISJura' erto Alb

-83DATE OF ABDUCTION Juan Pablo 10 September1976 OTHER DETAILS Young child; abducted with nurse.Parents murdered after resistingabduction. Brother of SCHAEGR FredericoSimon Aged 28 6 August 1976 13 June 1976 10 September1976 30 May 1976 15 September1976 May 1976 July 1976 Aged 24 Lawyer Lawyer Aged 28 Teacher Aged 27; beak employee Aged 16; student.Both reportedlyassassinated Worker

SADY Delia

SIMONAZZIAlberto Luis del Valle 1 June 1976 10 May 1976 11 May 1976 20 April 1976 May 1976 28 August 1976 25 May 1976 13 November 1976 5 August 1976 13 June 1976 3 August 1976 10 August 1976 May/June 1976 5 September1976 5 September1976

Aged 76 (nale) Aged 31 Student Paraguayan;shoe-maker

Employeeof National Granary Board Law student

-84NAME TALQUENCAHugo Alfredo TALQUENCAJulio Felix TAMBURNINGuillermo TARNOPOLSKYBettina DATE OF ABDUCTION 14 May 1976 14 May 1976 16 July 1976 15 July 1976 Doctor Daugher of TARNOPOLSKY Hugo and Blanca Psychiatrist Chemicalengineer On military service; son of above couple Aged 54; Paraguayan; radic technician Lawyer Lawyer and wife of above Aged 22; on military service Aged 26; metallurgical worker Niece of BERMANNClaudio, detainedpsychiatrist OTHER DETAILS NAME VALENTICHJose VALERA BaldomeraJuan VALLEJOSde BENVENUTTORosa Elena VALLEJOS Tomas VASQUEZ Victor VAZQUEZ OCAMPO de LUGONES Maria Marta VEGA Jest-is uel Mig VEGA de ESPECHEMercedes S. VEDA de LUZI StellaMarla VERA Juan Carlos VERA BARROS RobertoMiguel VIDAL Emil Carlos VILA BUSTOS Jose Salvador WALKER Enrique YACUB Mario Gerardo ZAFFARONICASTILLAJorge ZAFFARONIISLAS Mariana Student Aged 28; studentof Architecture ZEFF Ricardo Jaime ZIESCHANKKlaus

-85-DATE OF ABDUCTION 15 September1976 November 1976 23 July 1976 April 1976 4 June 1976 Member of Christian Revolutionary ty Par Leader of Railway Workers'Union Remedial teacher Factory worker OTHER DETAILS Worker Lawyer

TARNOPOLSKYBlanca TARNOPOLSKY Hugo TARNOPOLSKYSergio and wife Laura TATTER Jorge Frederico TESTE Jorge TESTE Monica Schteingart de THOMAS AlfredoMario TOMASIN Emilio Jaime TORRENTS Irene Laura TORRES Mario Rufino TOSO Hugo TRIGO Raul Horacio ULRICH Agustin Hilario URRUTI Dora Alicia URTEAGA Jose

15 July 1976 15 July 1976 July 1976 15 October 1976 November1976 November1976 5 June 1976 25 March 1976 13 November1976 3 May 1976 7 July 1976 23 June 1976 6 April 1976 21 April 1976 19 July 1976 and 4 January 1977 20 April 1976 12 October 1976

14 May 1976 25 September1976 8 June 1976 14 April 1976 3 August 1976 3 April 1976 19 August 1976 May/June 1976 17 July 1976 8 November 1976 27 September1976 27 September1976

Aged 27

Aged 23; student

Journalist Lawyer Uruguayan Aged 1; daughterof above Aged 18

26 March 1976

Student Aged 3; father guerrilla shot in armed confrontationin July 1976 Aged 22; student ZINA FIGUEREDOGaston Businesswoman 14 July 1976 ZIMMERMANLeonora ZIMMERMANMaria 22 October 1976 22 October 1976

German; studentat Universityof Technology, Munich. Reportedlyseen in unofficialdetention centre in May 1976 Student Studentand sisterof above Uruguayan;worker

VAISMAN GustavoAlberto VALENCIAde FERNANDEZIsabel Noemi

-86NAME ZINGARETTIZulma ZOPPI Gustavo ZOPPI Ricardo Jaime ZUKERNIKMartin Norberto DATE OF ABDUCTION May/June 1976 17 August 1976 23 July 1976 10 June 1976 Student OTHER DETAILS LEZCANO Hugo Oscar LEZCANO Sebastian LOPEZ de MARQUES Estrelia LOPEZ Francisco LOPEZ Lelio Reinaldo LUCAS Orfano Guillermo LUGONES Carlos Eduardo MALDONADOJulio Cesar MALDONADOPedro L. MARIZCURRENA Andres MARIZCURRENA Liliana MARTELLIMarina Celina Blanca MARTIN Pedro de MATARAZO Carlos Alberto MAYMAR Alicia Irene MENDOZA Jose Martin MICUCCI Daniel Bernardo MICUCCI Viviana Ercilla MILLAN Analia MILLON Jorge Luis MONOURCADEErnesto Bonifacio PAREDES Francisco PEREZ Hector Alberto PERNAS GracielaEugenia PEYEYRA Raul PIAGGI Jose Alberto PIEVAUL EduardoAlberto POCCIO Alberto POCE Julio Gerardo PONTI Daniel Ricardo PORTILLOPENAYO Presentado OBLIGADOMaria ORONO ORTIZ Anselmo RAAGUIP HoracioAmado RIVERO Victor Abel RODRIGUEZCarlos Alfredo RODRIGUEZDaniel ROMERO Ramon Eduardo ROSAS Camilo SALAS Nicasio Bernardo SANCHEZ Juan Carlos SANCHEZRuben Alberto SCARPIZZOJulio I. SCIDONESCarmelo SERRIN Santiago SORIA Miguel Angel TALICE Marla Ester

^87TORRES Daniel Domingo TRIAS HERNANDEZCecilia Susana URCOLA Raul Oscar VARGAS VIGO Graciela VASSENA Raul Felix VIGO Victorina VILLA LOBO Lorenzo Alejo VILLANUEVAVictor VILLEGASRita ZOMAIZN Horacio

The followingis a list of disappearance cases compiledfrom habeas cor us writs filed during Novemberand December 1976: ABEL RIVERO Victor ALBURQUERQUE Rosa ALFIB Jacobo ALFONSO Jorge Marla 0 RAAGUIP Horacio AMCARAZ MUNOZ Jose Alfredo ANDALUZ Maria Graciela ANGELES QUINTEROSMaria de los AQUINO Jesus Antonio AYALA Zoilo AYOROA Averbal Domingo BALVIANOIrma Beatrizde BARROS Celina BAYETO Adolfo Arturo BEOVIC Marcos Antonio BERNARDOJose Pablo BLANCA Carlos A. BLANCA MARTELLIMarina Celina BONCIEDCarlos Ignacio BRONZEL Jacobo BRZOSTOQSKY Miguel Jacobo CABRAL Carlos Alberto CAGOSSI de PEREZ VARGAS Maria Luisa CALANERIJulio Cesar CALBACINIDaniel Alberto CAMPOS de BLANCO Ivonne CAMPOS Jair Beatriz CAMPOS Miguel Angel CANEDO Arturo CANO Efrain Guillermo CAPRIOLICarlos Alberto CARRIZO Manuel CARTIZ Carlos Jorge CHERSANAZJuan Carlos CHEULA Osvaldo Ruben CIARLETTISilvanoEgidio COBAS CRESPI Osvaldo Pedro COLLADO Jorge Daniel CRAM GONZALEZWashington CRESPO Carlos E. Gea CROLLA Julia Graciela DADIN Hector Jorge DAVID EugenioRafael DELGADO Adriana Graciela DIAZ GuillermoEnrique DIEGO Ana Teresa ECCIO BOCCI Alfredo ENGEL Oscar Guillermo ESCALANTEMaria Andrea ESPINDOLACarlos FERNANDEZPedro Cesar FERNANDEZPedro Oscar FERNANDEZGOMEZ Ricardo FISCHER Omar Jose FUD Juan Carlos GALDAMESMaria Teresa GALVEZ de BINI Elda Isabel GEROUIMOJose Maria GERZEL Lorenzo Gerardo GOMEZ Juan Guillermo GONZALEZMora Cristina GONZELEZRoque Agustin HERMONESde PORTILLOMedina IRIARTERodolfo Jose KEHEYAN Noemi Valentina KENNEDYDelia KRUG Alberto Roque LAMORCA de Ernesto Bonifacio LANZA FranciscoAntonio LARROSA Roberto Jilan

-88-

APPENDIX 7 In attempts to trace missing persons, friends and relatives may make systematicapproaches to police, military, government and church authorities, although these will rarely yield any fruitful result. Police often refuse to investigateor even record an abduction and newspapers have been discouraged from publicising such cases. More sympatheticauthoritiesmay warn them that it is unwise to take their inquiries too far. After learning of the abduction of their 22-year-old son, Luis Pablo Steimberg, on 10 August 1976, his parents took the following actions: Writs of habeas cor us were filed in the Courts of Penal de Moron, the Federal Court of San Martin and of the Federal Capital. Telegrams denouncing the abduction and requesting an interviewwere sent
tO
:

RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE UNITED NATIONS 2433RD PLENARY MEETING 9 December 1975 3452 (XXX). Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or De radin Treatment or Punishment The General Assembl , Considerin that, in accordancewith the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienablerights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Considerin that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person, Considerin also the obligation of States under the Charter, in particularArticle 55, to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamentalfreedoms, Havi re ard to article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 7 of the InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which provide that no one may be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Adopts the Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, the text of which is annexed to the present resolution, as a guideline for all States and other entities exercising effective power. ANNEX Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from being Subjected to Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Article 1. 1. For the purpose of this Declaration, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering,whether physical or mental, is intentionally

President of the Republic of Argentina; Secretary General of the Presidency; Minister of the Interior; - Commander in Chief of the Army; Commander in Chief of the Air Force; Commander of I Army Corps; Federal Police Chief; Papal Nuncio; President of the Argentine Episcopal Assembly; General Commander of the Military Institutes, none of which had any result. They saw the following people: - Director of the Miltary College (three times); Chief of Operations of the Military College (five times); First Secretary of the Papal Nuncio (twice); Head of Security of the Commander in Chief of the Army (three times); - Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (once); EcumenicalMovement for Human Rights (twice); Permanent Assembly for Human Rights (once). They had articles published in La 0 inion, Cronica and the Buenos Aires Herald. They requested an interviewwith the Commander of Military Institutions, who, after keeping them waiting for two hours, refused to see them. One month after the abduction, telegramswere sent once again to all those people mentioned above, and the writs of habeas cor us were filed once again.

-91inflictedby or at the instigationof a public official on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person informationor confession, punishing him for an act he has committed or is suspectedof having committed, or intimidatinghim or other persons. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidentalto, lawful sanctions to the extent consistent with the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. 2. Torture constitutesan aggravated and deliberate form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatmentor punishment. Article 2. Any act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is an offence to human dignity and shall be condemned as a denial of the purposes of the Charter of the United Nations and as a violation of the human rights and fundamentalfreedoms proclaimed in the Universal Declarationof Human Rights. Article 3. No State may permit or tolerate torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatmentor punishment. Exceptionalcircumstancessuch as a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instabilityor any other public emergencymay not be invoked as a justificationof torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 4. Each State shall, in accordancewith the provisionsof this Declaration, take effectivemeasures to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatmentor punishment from being practised within its jurisdiction. Article 5. If an investigationunder article 8 or article 9 establishes that an act of torture as defined in article 1 appears to have been committed, criminal proceedings shall be institutedagainst the alleged offender or offenders in accordancewith national law. If an allegation of other forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is considered to be well founded, the alleged offender or offenders shall be subject to criminal, disciplinary or other appropriate proceedings. Article 11. Where it is proved that an act of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatmentor punishment has been committed by or at the instigation of a public official, the victim shall be afforded redress and compensation in accordance with national law. Article 12. Any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture practices as well as arrangementsfor the custody and treatment of persons deprived of their liberty in its territory,with a view to preventing any cases of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 7.

Each State shall ensure that all acts of torture as defined in article 1 are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply in regard to acts which constitute participationin, complicity in, incitement to or an attempt to commit torture. Article 8. Any person who alleges that he has been subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment by or at the instigation of a public official shall have the right to complain to, and to have his case impartiallyexamined by, the competent authoritiesof the State concerned. Article 9.

Wherever there is reasonable ground to believe that an act of torture as defined in article 1 has been committed, the competent authoritiesof the State concerned shall promptly proceed to an impartial investigationeven if there has been no formal complaint. Article 10.

The training of law enforcementpersonnel and of other public officials who may be responsible for persons deprived of their liberty shall ensure that full account is taken of the prohibitionagainst torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatmentor punishment. This prohibition shall also, where appropriate,be included in such general rules or instructionsas are issued in regard to the duties and functions of anyone who may be involved in the custody or treatment of such persons. Article 6.

Each State shall keep under systematicreview interrogation thods and me

-92 or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishmentmay not be invoked as evidence against the person concerned or against any other person in any proceedings.

Amnesty International Publications

Report of an Inquiry into Allegations of Ill-Treatment in Northern Ireland, A4, 48 pages, March 1972: 75 pence (US S1.85). Report on Allegations of Torture in Brazil, A5, 108 pages, first edition September 1972, re-set with updated preface March 1976: ti1.20 ( US $3.00). Political Prisoners in South Vietnam, A4, 36 pages, July 1973: 35 pence (US $0.90). A Chronicle of Current Events (Journal of the Human Rights Movenwnt in the USSR), nuinbers 17, 18, 21, 24, 27 published individually: 65 pence (US S1.60): double volumes 19-20, 22-23, 25-26: 85 pence (US S2.10); numbers 28-31 in one volume: 95 pence (US $2.50); nunthers 32-33, one volume, C1.95 (US $4.95). Amnesty International Report on Torture, 246 pages. First published December 1973, second (updated) edition January 1975: C1.50 (US $3.75). Chile: an Amnesty International Report, A5, 80 pages in English, 88 pages Spanish, September 1974: 85 pence (US $2.10). Short Report on Prison Conditions in West Bengal Jails, A4, 16 pages, September 1974. Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Israel and the Syrian Arab Republic to Investigate Allegations of III-Treatment and Torture, AS, 34 pages, April 1975: 50 pence (US $1.25). Workshop on Human Rights: Report and Recommendations, A5, 15 pages, April 1975, issued by the Amnesty International Campaign for the Abolition of Torture. Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Spain, AS, 24 pages in English, 28 pages Spanish. September 1975: 35 pence (US $0.90). Prisoners of Conscience in the USSR: Their Treatment and Conditions, AS, 154 pages, November 1975: C1.00 (US $2.50). AI in Quotes, AS, 24 pages, May 1976: 25 pence (US $0.50). Amnesty International 1961-1976: A cnronology, May 1976: 20 pence (US $0.40). Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Sri Lanka, A4, 52 pages, second edition December 1976: 75 pence (US $1.25). Report of an Amnesty International Mission to the Republic of the Philippines,A5, 60 pages, September 1976: 90 pence (US $1.80). Professional Codes of Ethics, AS, 32 pages, October 1976: 40 pence (US $1.00)

In addition to these major reports, Amnesty International also publishes a monthly Newsletter, an Annual Report and a regular series of Amnesty International Briefing Papers. These are available singly or by subscription: Amnesty International Briefing Papers: a new series of human rights reference booklets on individual countries, averaging between 12-16 pages in A5 format. Briefing Papers Number 1-9: Paraguay Ir Sianngapore Malawi Guatemala Rhodesia/Zimbabwe Taiwan (Republic of China) Czechoslovakia People's Democratic Republic of Yemen

Subscription price for series of 10 briefing papers: 6 (US $15). Price includes postage and packing. Amnesty International Newsletter and Annual Report: The Newsletter is a six-page monthly account of Amnesty International's work for human rights in countries throughout the world and includes a two-page bulletin on the work of the Campaign for the Abolition of Torture. The Annual Report gives a country-by-country survey of human rights violations which have come to the attention of Amnesty International. Yearly subscription 6 (US $15) inclusive. Amnesty International Publications are available in English and in most cases have been translated into other major world languages by the International Secretariat or by the national sections of Amnesty International. Copies of Amnesty International Publications can be obtained from the offices of the national sections of Amnesty International. Office addresses and further information may be obtained from the International Secretariat, 53 Theobald's Road, London WC 1X 8SP, England.

II

II